^. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE 
NERVOUS  CHILD 


BY 
ELIDA   EVANS 


INTRODUCTION  BY 
C.   G.  JUNG,  M.D.,  LL.D. 


**  He  who  reads  to  criticise  seeks  only  to 

hide  his  own  defects,  but  he  who  reads 

for  understanding  will  find  the  truth." 

Ancient  Maxim 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1922 


Copyright,  1920,  bt 
DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  Inc. 


Printed   in   U.  S.  A, 


gfte  ^ufam  A  fallen   Company 

DOOK      MANUFACTURERS 
RAHWAY  NEW     JERSEY 


INTRODUCTION 
By  Dr.  C.  G.  Jung, 

Zurich, 

Switzerland. 

I  HAVE  read  the  manuscript  of  Mrs.  Evans' 
book,  The  Problem  of  the  Nervous  Child,  with 
great  pleasure  and  interest.  Mrs.  Evans'  knowl- 
edge of  her  subject  matter  is  based  on  the  solid 
foundation  of  practical  experience,  an  experience 
gained  in  the  difficult  and  toilsome  treatment  and 
education  of  nervous  children.  Whoever  has  had 
to  deal  with  nervous  children  knows  what  an 
amount  of  patience,  as  well  as  skill,  is  needed  to 
guide  a  child  out  of  a  wrong  pathological  atti- 
tude into  a  normal  life.  This  book,  as  the  reader 
can  see  on  almost  every  page,  is  the  fruit  of  an 
extended  work  in  the  field  of  neuroses  and  abnor- 
mal characters.  Despite  the  fact  that  there  are 
numbers  of  books  on  education,  there  are 
very  few  that  occupy  themselves  with  a  child's 
most  intimate  problems  in  such  a  careful  and 
painstaking  way.  It  is  self-evident  that  this  con- 
tribution will  be  of  great  value  to  any  one  inter- 
ested in  educational  questions.     But  the  physi- 


INTRODUCTION 

cian  should  be  particularly  indebted  to  the  au- 
thor, as  her  book  will  be  a  valuable  co-operation 
in  the  fight  against  the  widespread  evil  of  neu- 
roses in  adults.  More  and  more  the  neurologist 
of  today  realizes  the  *f act  that  the  origin  of  the 
nervousness  of  his  patients  is  very  rarely  of  re- 
cent date,  but  that  it  traces  back  to  the  early  im- 
pressions and  developments  in  childhood.  There 
lies  the  source  of. many  later  nervous  diseases. 
Most  of  the  neuroses  originate  from  a  wrong  psy- 
chological attitude  which  hinders  the  adjustment 
to  the  environment  or  to  the  individual's  own  re- 
quirements. This  wrong  psychological  position 
which  is  at  the  bottom  of  almost  every  neurosis 
has,  as  a  rule,  been  built  up  during  the  course  of 
years  and  very  often  began  in  early  childhood  as 
a  consequence  of  incompatible  familiar  influences. 
Knowing  this,  Mrs.  Evans  lays  much  stress  on 
the  parent's  mental  attitude  and  its  importance 
for  the  child's  psychology.  One  easily  overlooks 
the  enormous  power  of  imitation  in  children. 
Parents  too  easily  content  themselves  with  the 
belief  that  a  thing  hidden  from  the  child  can- 
not influence  it.  They  forget  that  the  infantile 
imitation  is  less  concerned  with  the  action  than 
with  the  parent's  state  of  mind  from  which  the 
action  emanates.  I  have  frequently  observed 
children  who  were  particularly  influenced  by  cer- 
tain unconscious  tendencies  of  the  parents  and, 
in  such  cases,  I  have  often  advised  the  treatment 

vi 


INTRODUCTION 

of  the  mother  rather  than  of  the  child.  Through 
the  enlightenment  of  the  parents,  their  wrong  in- 
fluences can  at  least  be  avoided,  and  thus  much 
can  be  done  for  the  prevention  of  later  neuroses 
in  the  children. 

The  author  particularly  insists  upon  the  im- 
portance of  watching  the  manifestations  of  the 
sexual  instinct  in  childhood.  Any  one  concerned 
with  the  education  of  abnormal  children  will  con- 
firm the  existence  and  the  frequency  of  sexual 
symptoms  in  these  children.  Despite  the  fact  that 
sexual  activity  does  not  belong  to  the  infantile 
age,  it  frequently  manifests  itself  in  a  symptom- 
atic way,  viz.  as  a  symptom  of  abnormal  develop- 
ment. An  abnormal  development  does  not  pro- 
vide sufficient  opportunity  for  the  normal  display 
of  the  child's  energies.  Thus,  the  normal  outlet 
being  blocked,  the  energy  accumulates  itself  and 
forcibly  seeks  an  abnormal  outlet  in  premature 
and  perverted  sexual  interests  and  activities. 
Infantile  sexuality  is  the  most  frequent  symptom 
of  a  morbid  psychological  attitude.  According  to 
my  view,  it  is  wrong  to  consider  sexual  phenom- 
ena in  early  childhood  as  the  expression  of  an 
organic  disposition;  most  of  the  cases  are  due  to 
an  environment  not  fitting  the  child's  psychologi- 
cal nature.  The  attitude  of  the  child  toward  life 
is  certainly  determined  by  the  inherited  disposi- 
tion, but  only  to  a  certain  extent;  on  the  other 
side  it  is  the  result  of  the  immediate  parental  in- 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

jBuences  and  of  the  educational  measures.  "While 
the  inherited  disposition  cannot  be  changed, 
these  latter  influences  can  be  improved  by  suitable 
methods,  and  thus  the  original  unfavourable  dis- 
position can  be  overcome.  Mrs.  Evans'  book 
shows  the  way,  and  how  to  treat  even  the  most 
intricate  cases. 

KiJsNACHT,  near  ZUBIOH, 
OGtoher,  1919. 


VTll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

Statement  of  the  Problem 

PASS 
1 

II 

The  Development  of  Eepression 

.      31 

III 

Symbolic  Thought       .       .       .       . 

41 

IV 

The  Chh^d  and  the  Adult  . 

.       62 

V 

Mental  Behaviour  of  the  Child 

.       84 

VI 

Defence  Eeactions     .        .       .        . 

113 

VII 

The  Parent  Complex  . 

.     130 

VIII 

Buried  Emotions  .... 

.     160 

TX 

Child  Training     .... 

.     181 

X 

Muscle  Erotism   .... 

.     195 

XI 

The  Tyrant  Child       .       .       .       . 

222 

XII 

Teaching  of  Eight  and  Wrong  . 

.     246 

XTTI 

Self  and  Character     . 

.     269 

Index 

.     297 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE 
NERVOUS  CHILD 

CHAPTER  I 

STATEMENT   OF   THE  PKOBIiEM 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  aid  those  parents 
who  in  the  training  or  education  of  their  children 
have  arrived  at  the  point  where  the  methods  al- 
ready used  have  proved  inadequate.  The  child 
does  not  respond  normally  to  their  most  earnest 
endeavours,  and  the  parent,  if  he  or  she  has 
thought  much  about  the  matter,  has  become 
slightly  perplexed,  if  not  actually  desperate.  I 
have  aimed,  not  at  adding  another  to  the  already 
long  list  of  textbooks  explaining  psychoanalytical 
treatment  for  nervous  troubles,  but  only  at  pro- 
viding a  simple  introduction  to  the  subject  from 
the  special  point  of  view  of  the  relation  between 
parent  and  child.  My  attempt  to  present  so  large 
a  subject  in  so  small  a  compass  will  require  me  to 
make  statements  in  a  seemingly  dogmatic  man- 
ner, without  supporting  them  with  proofs,  which 
I  should,  but  for  lack  of  space,  be  most  happy  to 
give.  With  few  exceptions,  I  have  avoided  the 
use  of  technical  terms,  which  are  almost  neces- 

1 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

sarily  used  in  describing  the  ideas  fundamental 
to  psychoanalysis.  The  book,  therefore,  is  ad- 
dressed primarily  to  the  steadily  increasing  num- 
ber of  parents  who  are  sufficiently  courageous 
(and  never  has  courage  been  so  essential  in  every 
sphere  of  life  as  it  is  at  the  present  day)  to  over- 
come their  prejudices  against  scientific  methods 
of  managing  children. 

One  of  the  practical  results  of  the  newer  psy- 
chology of  the  unconscious  is  the  discovery  of  a 
means,  never  before  systematically  used,  of 
arousing  the  child  ^s  interest  in  his  school  environ- 
ment ;  another,  which  is  much  more  striking  in  its 
novelty,  a  means  of  adapting  a  child  to  the  home 
environment.  This  seems  the  more  strange,  as 
it  is  thought  by  many  that,  of  all  places,  the  home 
is  the  one  where  the  child  is  expected  to  be  the 
best  fitted.  Most  of  the  students  of  child-training, 
at  any  rate  that  part  of  them  for  whom  this  book 
is  intended,  will  have  had  no  scientific  study  of 
the  laws  of  human  development  but  will  have  tried 
in  a  more  or  less  systematic  way,  to  profit  by  the 
lessons  of  their  own  childhood  in  guiding  youth 
along  the  difficult  path  of  infancy  and  the  still 
more  arduous  path  of  adolescence.  And  if  it  is 
desirable  to  use  as  few  technical  terms  as  possi- 
ble, it  is  still  more  desirable  to  avoid  abstruse 
discussions.  I  shall,  therefore,  give  only  the  end 
results  of  present-day  research  and  observation 
on  the  subject,  with  examples  of  cases. 

2 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

THE  NEGATIVE  CHAEACTER 

These  cases  will  show  that  every  child  has  a 
negative  character  as  well  as  a  positive  or  affirma- 
tive one.  The  child  takes  pleasure  not  only  in 
complying  with  the  suggestions  of  parents  and 
others  but  also  in  going  contrary  to  them.  This 
universal  tendency  to  go  against  advice  or  direc- 
tion is  what  I  mean  by  this  negative  character. 
To  be  sure  the  negative  character  of  the  child  is 
of  great  value  to  him  in  his  contact  with  the  world 
in  later  life;  but  it  is  most  important  that  the 
parents  should  not  be  the  most  frequent  object 
of  this  negative  activity.  The  parents,  on  the 
other  hand,  should  know  how  to  manage  the  in- 
stinctive resistance  of  their  children,  a  resistance 
which  is  essential  to  the  rightly  developed  char- 
acter of  all  humans.  Its  manifestations  are 
therefore  inevitable  in  children,  who  are  the  most 
natural  of  humans.  The  parents  who  see  this 
trait  as  a  necessary  trait  of  all  character,  will 
realize  that  it  has  only  to  be  directed  from  the 
home  outward  to  the  world  to  become  one  of  the 
most  valuable  traits  possessed  by  the  child.  They 
will,  therefore,  be  the  more  anxious  to  understand 
how  the  expression  of  this  negative  character  in 
the  home  can  be  diminished  by  the  child  *s  home 
training.  For  in  the  home,  where  peace  and  har- 
mony should  reign,  it  is  desirable  to  have  as  little 
friction  and  antagonism  as  possible. 

3 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

There  is  a  reason  why  the  negative  character 
of  the  child  is  sometimes  brought  out  and  devel- 
oped to  the  uttermost  in  some  homes,  while  the 
atmosphere  of  others  does  not  furnish  the  condi- 
tions for  its  growth.  This  cause  frequently  lies  in 
the  actions  of  the  parents,  in  their  treatment  of 
the  child.  Most  parents,  however,  and  most  teach- 
ers, who  ought  to  be  prepared  on  this  point,  as 
soon  as  the  information  contained  in  this  and 
similar  books  ^  can  be  assimilated,  are  profoundly 
ignorant,  through  no  fault  of  their  own,  of  the 
way  in  which  their  own  actions  affect  the  children 
under  their  care. 


A  child's  words 

As  soon  as  the  child  can  use  words  he  is  almost 
universally,  by  parent  and  teacher  alike,  supposed 
to  be  able  to  reason  with  the  thoughts  which  these 
words  represent  to  adults — a  very  illogical  sup- 
position for  the  adult  to  make.  If  the  child's 
physical  ability  to  say  *^  ethics, '*  ^^  moral  princi- 
ples,'' ** psychology,"  **epistemology,"  implied 
an  understanding  of  what  the  terms  meant,  then 
and  only  then  would  teacher  and  parents  have  a 
right  to  expect  a  child's  acts  to  be  moral.  But  the 
parent,  acting  with  an  inevitable  unreason,  ex- 
pects in  the  child  an  understanding  of  the  thimgs 

1  Compare  Wilfrid  Lay:  Man's  Unconscious  Conflict  (N.  Y., 
1917)  and  The  Child's  Unconscious  Mind  (1919). 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

denoted  by  words  which  the  child  himself  can  only 
hear  and  pronounce.  Now  and  then  this  discrep- 
ancy flashes  into  momentary  clearness  to  the  pa- 
rent who  hears  a  child  innocently  repeat  some 
profanity  or  obscenity  which  he  may  have  picked 
up  on  the  street. 

The  first  signs  of  interest  and  activity  in  sur- 
roundings are  shown  by  the  asking  of  innumera- 
ble questions.  They  are  simple  and  disconnected. 
Where?  Who?  Why?  How!  The  limited  ex- 
perience of  the  child  causes  much  repetition. 
Words  are  learned  before  meanings  and  accepted 
uses  of  words.  Mere  perception  is  intellectually 
developed  into  conception.  If  in  answering  these 
questions  we  go  far  ahead  of  the  child  ^s  experi- 
ence of  life,  our  words  have  no  meaning  for 
him.  Here  is  a  pitfall  for  the  unwary  parent 
or  teacher  who  is  ignorant  of  the  slow  growth 
of  the  child's  power  to  think.  A  parent  often 
mistakes  for  real  knowledge  a  child's  facility  in 
picking  up  words  and  his  apt  attempts  at  using 
them. 

The  child  has  eyes  and  sees  not,  has  ears  and 
hears  not,  simply  because  he  has  not  had  the  ex- 
perience which  alone  constitutes  true  seeing  and 
hearing.  For  this  reason  there  arises  a  very  pe- 
culiar and  generally  unappreciated  condition. 
The  child  seems  to  understand  because  he  can 
repeat  words.  Therefore  the  parent,  having 
caused  the  child  to  learn  and  repeat  a  number  of 

5 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

words  which  express  high  moral  aims,  fatuously 
thinks  the  child  understands  and  wishes  to  attain 
those  aims. 

An  illustration  is  seen  when  parents  are  trying 
to  arouse  a  feeling  of  repentance  in  a  child,  who 
has  wilfully  disobeyed,  and  insist  that  the  re- 
pentance be  shown  in  a  set  phrase  of  '^I  am  very 
sorry,  please  forgive  me  for  being  so  naughty.'' 
There  has  been  no  change  of  heart  in  the  child 
nor  greater  understanding  of  moral  responsi- 
bility, but  the  parents  usually  feel  they  have  won 
a  great  victory  and  are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
the  child  has  not  meant  every  word  he  repeated. 
When  he  is  again  allowed  to  go  out  and  play  he 
rarely  shows  any  desire  to  better  his  future  con- 
duct. If  there  has  been  punishment  he  goes  out 
to  find  something  to  smash  or  to  beat  up  his  com- 
panions, but  if  he  has  a  gentler  nature  and  the 
life  current  does  not  flow  so  swiftly  within  him, 
his  bruised  feelings  are  too  sore  for  action.  And 
such  quiet  reactions  are  mistaken  for  repentance. 
As  I  look  back  over  the  youthful  years  of  a  gen- 
eration ago,  I  find  that  the  boy  or  girl  who  would 
really  say  ^^I  ought  not  to  have  done  that.  My 
parents  know  what  is  best  for  me  and  I  will  never 
do  it  again"  has  often  been  dissipated  in  college 
life,  and  morally  weak.  Through  thoughtlessness 
parents  acquire  a  habit  of  taking  it  for  granted 
that  the  child  should  put  a  high  valuation  on  the 
parents'  services,  which,  however,  the  child  can- 

6 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

not  do,  as  he  has  not  yet  sufficient  reasoning 
power  to  appreciate  them. 

The  mental  disposition  of  the  child,  really  so 
little  understood  by  parents,  is  entirely  deter- 
mined by  his  very  early  environment,  unless  he  is 
physically  burdened  by  afflictions  visited  upon  him 
by  the  sins  of  his  forefathers.  This  disposition  is 
composed  of  a  veritable  potpourri  of  family  influ- 
ences, and  is  frequently  a  great  obstacle  to  the 
individual  in  his  endeavour  to  accommodate  him- 
self to  the  world  outside  of  the  family.  It  is  the 
unquestioned  duty  of  the  parent  so  to  influence 
the  child,  not  alone  by  words  but  also  by  the  much 
more  potent  actions  of  everyday  conduct,  that 
his  natural  cravings  and  instinctive  activities 
may  be  guided  to  a  conscious  purpose  and  intelli- 
gent action,  and  that  he  may  be  able  to  climb  over 
the  family  environment  and  attain  the  essential 
characteristics  of  an  independent  man. 


IMITATION 

The  discrepancy  between  the  child's  ready  use 
of  words,  the  meanings  of  which  he  does  not  un- 
derstand, and  his  great  difficulty  in  grasping  the^ 
moral  relations  of  his  acts  is  explained  by  the 
fact  that  his  first  means  of  fitting  himself  into  his 
social  surroundings  are  imitative.  Even  we 
adults,  when  suddenly  set  in  a  novel  social  en- 
viromnent,  are  likely  to  feel  awkward  in  our 

7 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

anxiety  to  appear  experienced.  We  carefully 
watch  other  people  and  do  as  they  do.  Not  all 
imitation,  however,  is  deliberate.  An  example  is 
the  contagious  cough  that  runs  around  the  con- 
gregation in  church,  or  the  fit  of  yawning  that  one 
bored  or  sleepy  person  catches  from  another.  We 
may  be  surprised  to  find  ourselves  thus  coughing 
or  yawning,  and  so  far  is  it  from  being  intentional 
that  we  may  find  it  difficult  to  stop. 

In  the  child  imitation  is  even  more  spontaneous. 
It  has  indeed  a  very  important  function  to  per- 
form, as  it  puts  the  present-day  child  in  posses- 
sion of  a  degree  of  proficiency  in  various  forms 
of  activity  which  he  would  not  be  able  to  acquire, 
unless  he  had  them  before  his  eyes  in  actual  oper- 
ation. These  are  things  which  the  race  has 
needed  and  taken  long  ages  to  develop.  But  the 
child,  seeing  them,  can  imitate  them  readily,  or 
at  least  can  attain  in  a  short  time  a  proficiency  in 
actions  which  have  been  brought  to  perfection 
only  by  evolution  during  the  development  of  the 
race. 

The  remark  is  often  made  that  children  in  one 
family,  even  with  the  same  bringing  up,  are  so 
different.  Twins  of  the  same  sex,  though  perhaps 
having  strong  facial  resemblance  when  children, 
will  in  later  life  develop  different  tendencies. 
Observation  shows  us  that  in  large  families  chil- 
dren are  not  treated  in  the  same  way.  It  is  not 
possible  for  parents  to  do  so.    Parents  are  influ- 

8 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

enced  in  the  treatment  of  children  by  the  fact  that 
each  hour  of  the  day  brings  to  the  parents  varying 
emotions,  disappointments,  joys  and  sorrows. 
The  child's  hourly  experience  in  the  home  thus 
depends  both  upon  the  reactions  which  the  pa- 
rents have  made  to  their  surroundings  when  they 
were  children,  and  upon  the  effect  on  the  mother 
and  father  of  the  surroundings  which  the  child 
may  or  may  not  have  comprehended.  Thus  aA 
accident  to  parents  which  the  child  may  have  seen, 
but  in  which  he  has  not  himself  been  injured,  such 
as  the  runaway  of  a  horse,  may  have  the  effect 
of  causing  the  child  ever  after  to  dislike  horses. 
Also  it  may  have  the  other  effect  of  making  the 
parents  over-careful  about  the  child's  experience 
with  horses.  Or  the  parents'  attitude  toward 
each  other  may  have  the  effect  of  determining  the 
sunny  or  cloudy  temperament  of  the  child,  a  qual- 
ity which  is  likely  to  persist  into  later  life  and  be- 
come a  mental  habit. 

Another  factor  in  the  home  influence  of  the 
child  is  that  of  prenatal  conditions.  The  mother, 
through  some  unpleasant  experience  during  her 
pregnancy,  may  have  formed  an  unpleasant  as- 
sociation with  the  child  which  will  affect  her  sub- 
sequent treatment  of  it.  Or  financial  troubles 
may  have  occurred  to  make  the  child  an  unex- 
pected burden.  Again,  the  carrying  out  of  paren- 
tal theories  of  bringing  up  children  may  be  at- 
tempted with  a  first  child,  and  with  later  children 

9 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

abandoned,  on  account  of  lack  of  perseverance,  or 
other  human  weakness.  The  father,  remembering 
the  escapades  of  his  own  youth,  is  frequently  on 
the  watch  to  nip  in  the  bud  any  indication  of  such 
actions  on  the  part  of  his  son  who,  born  with  a 
different  innate  disposition  and  a  totally  differ- 
ent mental  environment,  and  not  knowing  the 
father's  suspicions,  must  either  use  violence  in 
breaking  away  from  the  tight  grasp  of  over- 
powering authority  or  become  a  weakling  and  a 
failure. 

The  parents '  problem  is  to  impart  their  knowl- 
edge and  experience  in  such  a  way  as  to  encourage 
the  child 's  intelligence  and  not  to  balk  it  with  pro- 
hibitions; to  discipline  it  and  not  to  repress  it; 
to  train  it  up,  and  not  to  choke  it  with  their  own 
fears.  The  child's  mental  development  should 
neither  be  discouraged  nor  allowed  to  run  wild. 
How  best  to  train  the  child's  mind  morally  and 
intellectually,  thus  producing  the  finest  character, 
will  be  more  clearly  understood,  if  the  parents  are 
able  to  grasp  the  fundamental  principles  of  men- 
tal behaviour. 

The  truth  of  the  old  adage  that  example  is  bet- 
ter than  precept  is  rarely  realized  by  parents. 
Not  only  do  we  appeal,  in  teaching  any  dexterity, 
such  as  penmanship,  mainly  to  the  example  of  a 
perfectly  written  word  to  be  copied,  but  in  golf 
or  tennis,  for  instance,  one  learns  more  from  the 
coaching  of  a  professional  than  from  any  number 

10 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

of  textbooks  that  may  be  read.  Furthermore, 
the  proverb  refers  chiefly  to  the  tendency  of  ex- 
ample to  call  forth  an  impulsive  imitation  that  is 
largely  determined  by  admiration.  A  parent's 
attempt  to  inculcate  pure  utterance  is  fruitless  if 
he  has  the  accent  of  a  Coclmey,  or  to  enforce  clean 
hands  and  other  personal  neatness  if  the  parents' 
hands  are  unwashed  and  their  house  is  in  disor- 
der. Children  imitate  parents  without  being 
aware  of  it  and  even  unobserved  by  the  parents. 
Possibly  the  children  imitate  the  parents  out  of 
sheer  adoration,  and  in  this  case  there  should  be 
some  excellence  in  the  model  to  be  adored.  The 
parent  who  is  unable  to  understand,  and  to  ac- 
commodate his  ways  to  his  children  must  either 
learn  what  is  wrong  with  himself  that  his  child 
does  not  thrive,  or  the  child  will  come  into  painful 
conflict  with  a  world  of  external  reality  outside  of 
the  home.  The  child  with  a  wrong  home  environ- 
ment will  seldom  fit  into  the  world,  and  will  have 
one  painful  experience  after  another  to  show  him 
his  faulty  adaptation  to  life's  requirements.  The 
parent  must  study  himself  as  the  gardener  studies 
the  soil,  temperature  and  climatic  conditions,  and 
must  observe  the  child  as  the  gardener  observes 
the  plants  during  every  period  of  their  growth. 
He  must  know  as  intimately  as  possible  the  na- 
ture of  both,  the  plant  and  its  environment,  in 
order  to  bring  it  to  perfect  blossom  and  plenteous 
fruit. 

11 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

PSYCHOANAI.YSIS 

The  preparatory  psychoanalytic  work  of  tak- 
ing a  nervous  child's  history  in  clinics  or  in  pri- 
vate practice  shows  that  even  before  the  fifth 
year  of  the  child's  life  may  appear  the  first  indi- 
cations of  a  conflict  which  is  later  to  take  place 
between  the  group  of  parental  wishes  and  the 
child's  struggles  to  establish  his  individual  iden- 
tity— a  conflict  which  must  be  the  cause  of  the 
nervousness  that  has  led  the  parent  to  take  the 
child  to  the  psychoanalyst. 

In  the  following  chapters,  by  relating  several 
cases  which  have  come  under  my  care  and  instruc- 
tion by  the  analytic  method,  I  hope  to  show  how 
the  parents  in  following  out  their  ideals  of  train- 
ing or  education  have  obstructed  their  children's 
adaptation  to  social  environment.  Many  parents 
observe  in  their  children  acts  that  they  cannot  un- 
derstand. Moreover,  even  their  most  successful 
experiences  are  accompanied  by  a  number  of  fail- 
ures in  either  the  school,  home  or  business  life  of 
some  of  their  children.  One  boy  does  not  get  on 
as  he  should,  another  deteriorates  in  character  or 
bodily  health  under  what  seems  the  same  treat- 
ment that  improves  his  brother.  In  such  cases 
the  parents  are  tempted  to  consider  the  boy's  nat- 
ural badness  or  dullness  at  fault,  while  the  more 
advantageous  course  would  be  not  only  to  study 

12 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

their  own  methods,  but  also  to  make  a  careful 
diagnosis  of  the  boy's  nature. 

During  an  analy^tic  treatment  the  analyst  is 
comparable  to  a  bridge  over  which  the  patient 
escapes  from  the  troubles  originating  in  his 
childhood  into  another  sphere  of  thought  where 
the  point  of  view  is  completely  changed.  The 
tears,  restlessness,  general  unhappiness  and  ina- 
bility to  fit  into  the  niche  where  he  has  been  placed 
by  birth  or  circumstances,  give  place  to  an  en- 
tirely new  mental  situation.  Through  analysis 
the  patient  is  shown  that  life  is  like  a  country 
where  he  must  pass  through  varying  degrees  of 
heat,  cold  and  humidity.  To  the  child,  especially, 
life  in  the  workaday  world  is  indeed  often  very 
cold  and  causes  him  to  feel  that  no  one  loves  him. 
Home  life,  on  the  contrary,  may  have  been  very 
warm,  loading  him  with  caresses,  with  privileges, 
Avith  toys  and  playmates.  The  home  influence 
may  have  projected  itself  abroad  in  travel  and 
in  whatever  else  the  fond  parents  (judging  of  the 
child's  needs  by  their  own  desires)  can  think  of 
to  help  the  child  through  his  difficulties.  In  such 
instances  the  parents'  inevitable  judging  of  the 
child  by  themselves  does  the  child  much  harm,  for 
the  circumstances  are  so  different.  When  an 
adult,  for  example,  is  needing  rest  to  recuperate 
from  his  output  of  energy,  he  is  likely  to  require 
the  child  to  be  quiet,  although  the  child  is  needing 

13 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

a  larger  opportunity  to  use  his  accumulated  and 
increasing  energy. 

SUPERHEATED  FAMILY  ATMOSPHERE 

Not  only  is  the  home  life  of  some  children  un- 
duly warm  on  account  of  excessive  shelter,  but 
that  of  other  children  is  too  cold.  The  feeling  of 
coldness  from  which  the  child  often  suffers  is 
caused  either  by  a  lack  of  sympathy  and  under- 
standing on  the  part  of  the  parents,  or  by  the 
parents'  being  too  much  occupied  with  their  own 
problems  to  lower  their  minds  to  the  child's  level, 
and  merely  envying  the  child  because  he  seems  to 
be  free  from  care.  In  this  journey  of  life,  which 
we  must  travel  with  each  child,  we  must  ourselves 
be  farseeing.  We  must  watch  for  the  obstructions 
which  he  is  apt  to  encounter  and,  as  soon  as  he 
sees  them,  we  must  explain  them  to  him,  being 
very  careful  not  to  explain  more  than  he  sees. 
We  have  been  over  the  path  before  and  know 
what  is  coming,  but  his  mind  is  too  much  occupied 
with  the  wonders  around  him  to  look  ahead.  He 
must  travel  slowly  to  see  fully.  He  must  develop 
slowly  so  that  the  mind  and  body  keep  pace  to- 
gether. 

Just  as  the  child  suffers  because  of  instincts 
aroused  too  early,  or  from  a  mind  stimulated  with 
knowledge  it  cannot  assimilate,  and  as  the  body 
suffers  indigestion  from  too  much  and  too  rich 
food,  so  a  kind  of  moral  indigestion  results  from 

14 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

appetites  that  are  awakened  but  which  cannot  be 
gratified.  Like  a  hothouse  plant  forced  to  early- 
blossom,  the  precocious  child  may  be  admired  for 
being  so  ** bright"  when  so  young,  but  like  the 
Easter  rose  bush  and  lilies,  he  stops  budding. 
Some  unwise  college  professors,  in  experimental 
work,  have  forced  the  minds  of  their  children  to  a 
remarkable  development  so  that  the  adolescent 
was  doing  the  work  of  an  adult  in  mathematics 
and  philosophy.  They  proudly  announced  to  the 
world  the  great  discovery  that  a  child's  mind 
should  receive  intensive  training  beginning  as 
early  as  four  years  old,  because  those  early  years 
are  the  most  receptive  and  the  mind  is  free  from 
the  problems  of  later  life.  After  several  years  we 
learn  that  the  end  of  those  abnormal  develop- 
ments has  been  an  attempt  to  restore  the  ex- 
hausted energy  in  a  nerve  sanitarium,  or  by  a 
term  in  jail. 

As  I  have  intimated  above,  the  conduct  of  a 
child  follows  a  pattern  usually  formed  by  the  en- 
vironmental influences  which  are  operative  before 
the  fifth  year,  a  pattern  which  may  be  slightly 
modified  by  experiences  accumulated  thereafter. 
At  adolescence  deep  physical  changes,  which  have 
been  going  on,  cumulate  in  making  a  man  or  a 
woman  out  of  the  body,  but  the  mind  frequently 
develops  at  a  different  rate.  There  comes  a  great 
longing  for  freedom  to  try  the  new-found  power 
of  manhood  or  womanhood.    Then  the  parents  see 

15 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

in  the  boy  or  girl  the  **know-it-alP*  attitude  (so 
trying  to  the  home  circle),  feelings  of  superiority 
to  authority  or  criticism  and  sudden  paying  of  at- 
tention to  personal  appearance,  with  an  increased 
interest  in  the  opposite  sex.  * '  The  sudden  awak- 
ening of  feelings  and  passions,  redundant  energy, 
rapid  mental  processes,  scintillating  wit,  as  in 
plays  upon  words  and  phrases  and  unique  ideas, 
hopefulness  and  enthusiasm,  vigorous  and  reten- 
tive memory,  hasty  decision,  persistence  to  the 
point  of  obstinacy,  scorn  of  obstacles,  represent 
the  attitude  toward  a  world  opening  to  the  ex- 
panding vision  as  new  and  strange,  and  reveals 
a  crisis  in  growth  the  significance  of  which  is  not 
to  be  underestimated. ' ' 

These  symptoms  of  new  life  springing  up  in 
the  child  should  be  welcomed  by  the  parents  as 
indicating  that  another  man  is  being  added  to  the 
great  army  of  life.  It  only  needs  the  first  love 
affair  to  show  that  the  age  of  puberty  is  being 
successfully  passed.  I  shall  explain  later  the 
consequence  of  the  adolescent  age  not  being 
successfully  passed  through.  From  research  in 
that  field  we  have  learned  that  age  is  not  properly 
counted  by  years,  but  by  the  all-around  develop- 
ment of  the  individual. 

INTELLIGENCE   TESTS 

At  the  present  time  a  great  deal  of  attention  has 
been  attracted  to  the  intelligence  tests  adopted 

16 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

by  several  universities  in  this  country  to  sup- 
plement or  take  the  place'  of  the  regular  entrance 
examinations.  This  grading  of  general  intelli- 
gence has  been  already  carried  to  quite  a  scien- 
tific accuracy,  but  the  all-around  development 
just  mentioned  is  essentially  different  from  the 
intelligence  measured  by  these  tests,  and  should 
not  be  confused  with  it.  The  psychical  develop- 
ment to  which  I  refer  here,  may  be  absent  in  per- 
sons whose  intelligence  is  shown  by  the  tests  to 
be  of  the  highest  order.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
psychical  development  concerns  the  intimate  per- 
sonal relationships  of  the  individual,  primarily  to 
the  members  of  his  or  her  own  family.  Many 
people  quite  adult  in  physical  size  and  strength 
have  yet  the  mental  conduct  of  infants,  not  neces- 
sarily with  regard  to  practical  affairs  but  with 
regard  to  their  emotional  reactions  toward  their 
personal  environment.  In  the  intelHgence  tests  ^ 
very  definite  means  of  demarcation  are  obtained, 
such  that  it  is  possible  to  say  that  an  individual 
is  exactly  ten  years  old,  mentally,  twelve  years, 
or  fourteen  years,  or  an  average  or  superior 
adult.  Beyond  these  classes  it  is  impossible  to 
differentiate  people  with  regard  to  intelligence 
alone.  In  the  matter  of  the  psychical  development, 
however,  it  might  almost  be  said  that  there  are  an 
infinite  number  of  gradations  between  the  indi- 

lAs  described  in   The  Measurement  of  Intelligence  by  Louis 
M.  Terman,  New  Y«rk,  1916. 

17 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHH^D 

vidual  who  is  emotionally  an  infant  and  the  one 
who  is  a  fully  developed  adult. 

One  sees  many  old  infants,  who  go  around  un- 
attended, being  physically  anywhere  from  fifteen 
to  eighty  calendar  years  of  age,  but  in  initiative 
and  self-reliance  merely  babies.  The  fact  that 
they  usually  enjoy  poor  health  attracts  the  atten- 
tion and  interest  of  some  one,  who  seeks  to  make 
them  more  comfortable.  If  they  marry  they  fre- 
quently become  the  mothers  or  fathers  of  nervous 
children  and  are  likely  to  wreck  the  marital  hap- 
piness of  any  normal  spouse  to  whom  they  may 
be  linked.  These  elderly  infants  who  have  been 
seeking  infantile  means  of  satisfaction  all  their 
lives  are  seen  in  many  strata  of  society.  We  have 
examples  in  the  men  who  live  in  clubs.  Short  of 
being  rocked  to  sleep  their  wants  are  anticipated 
and  attended  to  in  the  most  comfortable  fashion, 
the  men  always  holding  a  pipe  or  a  cigar  in  the 
mouth  for  something  to  suck  on.  Women,  too, 
find  infantile  satisfaction  in  playing  bridge  or 
giving  their  children  entirely  into  the  care  of 
nurse-maids  with  as  inefficient  oversight  as  is  the 
carelessness  of  little  girls  who  play  with  dolls. 
People  with  fads  are  playing  with  life  as  children 
play  at  living,  and  I  have  been  surprised  to  find 
that  men  and  women,  retiring  to  the  life  of  a  nun- 
nery or  monastery  for  the  sole  purpose  of  avoid- 
ing the  responsibilities  of  living,  yet  think  them- 
selves examples  of  goodness.    In  them  we  see  a 

18 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

regression  to  lives  of  meditation  and  stagnation, 
virtually  a  return  to  a  prenatal  existence.  Surely 
there  is  greater  glory  in  meeting  and  conquering 
temptations  than  in  hiding  away  from.  them. 


EARLY  INFLUENCES 

In  assisting  at  the  psychological  examination 
of  several  thousand  men  in  a  city  lodging  house  I 
was  interested  to  observe  the  retarded  mental  de- 
velopment shown  in  the  history  of  the  alcoholics. 
There  was  usually  a  mother  or  sister  who  had 
made  a  comfortable  home  for  the  patient.  *^I 
kept  steady  work  until  after  her  death,  and  then 
I  had  no  one  to  care  if  I  went  to  the  devil,  and 
the  barroom  was  always  warm  with  something 
to  eat  and  drink,  to  warm  up  a  fellow's  spirits." 
When  asked  why  they  had  not  married,  the  reply 
was  the  usual  one:  **Well,  if  I  could  have  found 
a  girl  who  was  worth  marrying  I  would  have  been 
glad  to  marry,  but  I  never  could  find  the  right 
girl,  and  yet  I  wanted  to  marry  to  have  a  home 
of  my  own.''  This  really  meant  that  if  he  could 
have  found  a  girl  who  would  have  been  a  mother 
to  him,  and  cared  for  him  as  tenderly,  he  would 
have  married,  but  the  girls  had  also  revealed 
their  wishes  to  find  in  him  more  than  he  had  to 
give  of  love  and  sympathy.  He  was  really  unfit 
to  marry  because  he  wanted  all  the  sympathy  in 
the  home.    And  so  we  see  the  character  of  the 

19 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

alcoholics  undermined  by  the  considerate  mother 
care  which  only  a  child  needs,  and  we  find  the  man 
of  adult  years  giving  evidence  of  being  a  victim 
of  the  early  environmental  influences.  While  ap- 
parently an  adult,  he  is,  in  the  unconscious,  still 
a  child. 

The  efforts  of  a  child  to  express  its  individu- 
ality are  not  welcomed  by  the  parents,  who  are, 
on  the  contrary,  sorely  puzzled  and  think  by 
stricter  discipline  still  to  retain  and  guide  the 
youthful  life  which  is  trying  so  hard  to  break 
away  from  the  parent  stem.^  One  of  the  ques- 
tions asked  of  the  nervous  patients  in  the  psycho- 
logical clinic  of  Johns  Hopkins  University  at  Bal- 
timore: *^At  what  age  occurred  the  emancipation 
from  the  parents?''  brought  out  the  interesting 
fact  that  in  the  alcoholics,  epileptics  and  other 
neurotic  patients,  a  strong  family  influence  had 
existed  long  after  the  adolescent  period.  Occa- 
sionally parents  are  inclined  to  feel  that  they 
own  their  children  body  and  soul  and  that  their 
children  are  created  for  the  sole,  purpose  of  pro- 
viding for  the  parents  in  their  old  age.  This 
great  war  has  taught  us  that  we  are  unable  to 
control  our  children's  lives,  and  that  our  children 
must  themselves  secure  the  freedom  of  all  the 


1  Novelists  have  realized  the  baneful  effects  of  undue  parental 
authority  following  preconceived  notions.  George  Meredith  in 
The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel  vividly  depicts  the  tragic 
results  of  bringing  up  an  only  son  on  a  "  system "  in  isolation 
with  a  view  to  keeping  him'uncontaminated  by  the  world. 

20 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

world  for  mankind  to  live  in.  While  too  much 
discipline  was  fatal  to  freedom,  on  the  other  hand, 
too  much  freedom,  without  proper  training  in  its 
use,  is  also  destroying  life,  as  in  Russia.  Our 
children  are  a  trust,  and  are  created  for  the 
preservation  of  the  race.  The  life  that  lives  for 
self-preservation  only  wants  everything  for  it- 
self, is  jealous  of  all  who  have  more  success  of 
whatever  kind,  that  thinks  a  child  is  for  the  abso- 
lute use  of  the  home  interests,  is  infantile  and  go- 
ing against  the  instincts  of  the  human  race.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  human  life  living  solely  for  race 
preservation  is  unthinkable  as  a  part  of  social 
life.  In  truth,  one  of  these  is  quite  as  anti-social 
as  the  other. 

THE  COUNTRY  CHILD 

The  child,  born  and  bred  in  the  country,  and 
especially  on  a  farm  has,  other  things  being  equal, 
an  immense  advantage.  He  has  had  plenty  of 
space  to  roam  in,  seeing  the  farm  animal  life  and 
learning  nature's  lessons  in  the  cleanest  and  most 
wholesome  way.  The  city-bred  child,  crowded  in 
an  apartment,  hotel  or  even  in  a  private  house,  is 
robbed  of  many  of  his  rights,  the  greatest  of  which 
is  the  right  to  be  a  child,  with  dirty  hands  and 
face,  noisy  with  his  playmates,  and  with  an  om- 
nivorous appetite,  even  to  the  stealing  of  goodies 
from  the  pantry.    The  *' barefoot  boy  with  cheek 

21 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

of  tan/'  tousled  hair,  straw  hat  and  tumed-up 
pantaloons  was  not  a  nervous  child.  His  father 
and  mother  were  too  husy  with  their  day's  work 
to  surround  the  child  with  an  atmosphere  of 
**don'ts,"  *^ musts"  and  cleanliness.  He  played 
hard  all  day,  brought  into  use  all  his  muscles, 
shouted  to  his  comrades,  acted  upon  the  impulse 
of  the  moment  with  the  freedom  all  children  need. 
Play  is  but  a  preparation  for  life  and  the  child's 
play  imitates  work.  The  country  boy  with  his 
chores  to  do  night  and  morning,  bringing  eggs 
from  the  nests,  feeding  the  chickens,  driving  the 
cows  to  and  from  pasture,  bringing  in  wood  for 
the  kitchen  fire,  learns  self-control  in  the  natural 
way.  He  does  not  suffer  from  the  repression  of 
the  city  child  who  has  the  same  wishes  and  im- 
pulses to  roam  unmolested.  In  his  roamings  the 
city  child  meets  many  temptations,  much  knowl- 
edge is  presented  to  him  before  he  has  asked  for 
information,  and  life  unfolds  so  rapidly  that  he 
cannot  develop  in  the  sure  and  leisurely  manner 
of  the  country  boy. 

UNWHOLESOME  CITY  LIFE 

Largely  owing  to  these  problems  of  the  crowded 
city  life,  through  whose  perils  parents  with  diffi- 
culty guide  their  children  to  a  strong  manhood, 
science  has  come  forward  to  their  help.  In  the 
methods  and  teachings  of  psychoanalysis,  parents 

22 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

will  learn  that  their  anxiety  is  to  be  relieved,  and 
that  their  child  is  not  a  case  for  discipline  or 
punishment,  but  is  sick  in  mind  and  soul,  as  is 
the  body  when  in  a  fever.  At  first  glance  this 
may  not  seem  to  be  much  relief,  because  it  is 
apparently  easier  to  punish  and  to  discipline  a 
fault  than  it  is  to  cure  a  disease,  and  because 
the  punishment  is  felt  to  be  both  appropriate  and 
necessary;  but  a  study  of  the  mental  development, 
conscious  and  unconscious,  of  the  child  will  show 
that  the  treatment  of  the  child's  peccadilloes  by 
punishment  is  absolutely  futile.  The  view  of  the 
nervous  or  incorrigible  child  as  a  child  mentally 
diseased  is  alarming  only  if  there  is  no  known 
cure  for  the  disorder.  But  when  it  is  clearly  seen 
that  there  is  a  plain  and  simple  curative  pro- 
cedure which  any  parent  can  follow,  the  situation 
is  immediately  relieved  of  a  very  unpleasant  ten- 
sion by  the  removal  of  blame  from  the  child  and 
the  placing  of  the  parents'  activity  where  it  be- 
longs. After  these  newer  theories  become  known 
through  the  restoration  of  children  to  a  more 
normal  adjustment,  the  race  will  slowly  but  surely 
feel  the  results  in  better  self-control  and  stronger 
reactions  to  life. 


PSYCHOANALYTIC  METHOD 

The  theories  of  psychoanalysis  are  distorted 
by  so  much  inexperience  and  ignorance,  by  impu- 

23 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHttD 

dent  and  fraudulent  pretenders,  both  medical  and 
otherwise,  as  scarcely  to  be  recognizable.  In- 
stead of  placing  the  strongest,  cleanest  ideals  be- 
fore life  for  inspiration,  these  quacks  tear  down 
all  ideals,  oftentimes  with  licentious  and  immoral 
teaching.  Psychoanalysis  is  a  cleansing  process, 
separating  the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  It  teaches 
the  necessity  of  truth,  enabling  a  person  to  dis- 
tinguish the  good  from  the  bad  influence  in  his 
own  life.  It  is  educational  in  that  it  imparts  a 
knowledge  of  logical  reasoning,  and  much  general 
information  is  usually  imparted  along  the  lines 
of  history  and  literature.  Psychoanalysis,  or  an- 
alytical psychology,  means  an  analysis  of  the 
mind,  that  is,  a  separating  and  studying  of  the 
thoughts  of  an  individual  to  discover  the  under- 
lying motive,  the  existence  of  which  is  unknown 
to  him,  to  trace  them  back  to  their  origin  by  meth- 
ods of  association.  It  is  to  be  understood  that 
ideas,  which  occur  in  this  procedure  where  the 
person  who  is  being  analyzed  sits  in  quiet,  com- 
fortable surroundings  in  the  presence  of  the  psy- 
choanalyst alone,  are  not  governed  in  their  ap- 
pearance by  definite  purpose.  The  patient  sits 
quietly  and  simply  lets  his  mind  run  on.  It  is  be- 
lieved that  in  these  circumstances  the  unconscious 
is  supplying  at  least  the  motive  force  which 
brings  these  presentations  into  consciousness. 
They  are,  therefore,  called  **  descendants  of  the 
repressed.''    By  this  so-called  **free  association 

24 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

method''  one  thought  arouses  another  thought,  or 
group  of  thoughts,  bringing  up  in  turn  still  others, 
and  so  on,  until  after  careful  listening  and  silent 
comparison  of  the  words  of  the  patient,  the  ana- 
lyst can  discover  a  **seed  thought''  from  which 
all  the  complex  mental  underbrush  has  grown. 
These  comparisons  might  be  likened  to  a  kind  of 
surveying  by  which  the  surveyor  locates  and 
measures  the  distance  of  a  point  which  is  to  him 
inaccessible,  a  measurement  which,  by  the  way, 
requires  all  the  experience  of  a  trained  psycho- 
analyst to  make.  A  complete  doctrine  of  mind 
and  soul  would  include  the  consideration  of  many 
topics,  such  as  that  of  immortality,  lying  outside 
the  range  of  psychology,  as  we  shall  understand 
the  term.  In  this  work  we  have  to  do  with  mental 
happenings  or  operations,  as  we  find  them  in  our- 
selves, namely,  desires,  emotions,  acts  of  per- 
ceiving, thinking,  deciding  and  other  actual  men- 
tal events  and  their  conditions.  Psychology  is 
thus  the  study  of  the  way  in  which  minds  behave 
at  all  levels  of  the  conscious  and  unconscious.  In 
a  psychoanalytic  treatment,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
help  the  person  to  change  that  behaviour  from  in- 
fantile to  adult  mental  behaviour. 

In  many  ways  the  mind  of  the  child  behaves 
differently  from  that  of  the  adult.  There  is  pro- 
gressive development  from  the  helplessness  of 
infancy  to  the  relative  independence  of  maturity. 
From  this  viewpoint  the  aims  and  methods  of  the 

25 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

psychoanalytic  observer  do  not  differ  fundamen- 
tally from  those  of  chemistry  or  physics,  and  just 
as  in  other  sciences,  the  results  of  this  procedure 
may  be  invalidated  by  careless  observation,  by 
imperfect  analysis  and  by  rash  generalizations. 
In  both  chemistry  and  psychoanalysis,  observa- 
tion, and  the  inference  from  it,  present  special 
difficulties  due  to  the  material  with  which  we 
have  to  deal.  But  those  difficulties  do  not  free 
us  from  the  necessity  of  acquiring  first-hand  ac- 
quaintance with  the  facts.  Furthermore,  the  psy- 
choanalyst is  interested  in  things  as  they  are,  as 
well  as  in  things  as  they  ought  to  he. 


THE  LIBIDO 

The  fact  that  our  thoughts  and  feelings  cannot 
be  measured  by  a  foot  rule  does  not  make  them 
any  less  real.  A  spell  of  melancholy,  lawlessness, 
tears  or  any  form  of  unhappiness  is  a  fact  to  a 
child  or  an  adult.  In  some  respects  the  human 
soul  in  any  one  of  these  states  is  comparable  to 
an  ocean  liner  slowly  steaming  through  a  fog. 
The  driving  force  of  the  individual,  as  well  as 
the  ship,  moves  more  slowly  in  a  melancholy  or 
tearful  condition.  There  is  a  fear  of  danger 
ahead,  a  danger  unseen  and  unknown  to  the  indi- 
vidual but  felt  emotionally.  This  emotional  force 
or  urge  is  in  every  form  of  life,  whether  vegetable 
or  animal.    It  is  life  itself.    We  cannot  say  that 

26 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

the  vegetable  kingdom  has  an  emotional  urge,  but 
we  may  call  it  a  psychic  urge. 

'*  Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might,  .    .    . 

An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and  towers. 
And,  groping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 

Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers." 

This  thing  we  call  life,  which  sends  forth  the 
leaves  and  grass,  sends  the  bird  out  of  the  nest, 
weans  the  kitten  from  the  mother  cat,  sends  ani- 
mals many  miles  away,  going  days  without  food, 
facing  danger  of  destruction,  in  order  to  find  a 
mate,  is  the  same  force  which  fills  the  adolescent 
child  with  wishes  to  assert  his  own  individuality, 
to  overcome  all  restraint  and  authority.  It  is  this 
force  which  brings  the  first  love  affair  to  the  boy 
or  girl — a  most  important  event,  for  it  marks  the 
passing  of  childhood.  We  call  this  force  the 
libido.  As  its  existence  in  the  soul  is  the  most 
vital  fact  in  all  life,  normal  and  abnormal,  so  its 
whereabouts  is  the  most  important  problem  to 
solve  in  all  cases  of  nervousness;  and  so  we 
hope  that  the  reader  will  clearly  understand  the 
meaning  of  the  term.  It  may  seem  strange  to  be 
talking  about  the  whereabouts  of  the  libido  de- 
fined as  a  life  force,  but  it  is  a  real  condition  and 
is  otherwise  expressed  by  saying  from  what  kinds 
of  activities  the  individual  gets  his  satisfaction. 
*'His  satisfaction"  implies  that  everybody  does 

27 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHILD 

get  some  sort  of  satisfaction  from  whatever  he 
is  doing  with  his  life  force.  It  is  *^his"  satisfac- 
tion because  what  he  is  doing  is  his  act  more  than 
any  one^s  else.  In  cases  of  nervousness,  however, 
the  libido  is  found  to  be  occupied  in,  and  the  indi- 
vidual to  be  gaining  his  satisfaction  from,  his 
unconscious  thoughts  and  other  activities  which, 
not  being  suited  for  social  living  have  been  re- 
pressed into  the  unconscious  where  they  continue 
their  activity  just  the  same,  although  the  indi- 
vidual is  unaware  of  it. 

The  libido,  then,  is  comparable  to  a  moving 
force  of  nature,  such  as  the  current  of  a  river, 
which  must  flow  on  continuously.  The  libido 
never  stops,  as  time  never  stops,  and  must  flow 
on  to  the  outlet  (or  until  it  is  insuperably 
blocked).  As  the  stream  at  its  source  starts  in 
a  narrow  channel  and  grows  broader  toward  the 
mouth,  so  does  life  from  the  beginning  move  on 
in  small  and  narrow  ways,  growing  deeper  and 
broader  as  it  progresses.  There  must  be  a  cur- 
rent, and  a  channel  for  the  river  to  follow,  or  it 
would  become  stationary  like  a  pond  or  lake. 

The  child's  life  must  similarly  be  led  into  a 
channel  as  the  waters  in  irrigated  land  are  con- 
trolled so  that  they  may  produce  something  as 
they  are  absorbed  by  the  growing  plants.  But 
the  process  of  forming  this  channel  is  so  slow 
that  we  cannot  see  its  change  from  day  to  day. 
It  is  only  at  certain  times  that  we  notice  it.    Thus 

28 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

no  water  spills  over  the  dam  until  it  is  full.  The 
most  noticeable  change  in  the  child's  life  is  when, 
like  the  clod  climbing  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flow- 
ers, the  child  at  the  age  of  puberty,  suddenly 
shows  a  soul  in  the  first  love  affair.  If  the  child's 
libido  should  too  suddenly  flow  from  its  narrow 
channel  over  a  broad  expanse,  the  current  would 
be  too  suddenly  dissipated,  and  would  be  lost. 
Similarly  the  child's  life  loses  its  healthy  growth 
if  it  is  too  early  overheated  by  too  much  emotion. 
The  same  injury  results  whether  it  is  sexual  emo- 
tion, too  keen  social  rivalry,  excitement  from  too 
much  intellectual  work,  or  from  too  frequent 
stimulation  by  adults.  The  child  should  remain 
a  child  until  he  passes  through  the  various  phases 
of  physical  development,  and  gains  the  physique 
strong  enough  to  withstand  the  greater  emotions 
of  life.  A  small  current  of  electricity  vdll  make 
no  perceptible  change  in  the  wire  which  carries  it. 
A  greater  current  will  heat  the  same-sized  wire, 
and  too  great  a  current  will  hum  it  and  turn  it 
into  a  gas.  Similarly  in  a  channel  made  of  earth 
to  carry  the  water  for  irrigation.  A  stream  of 
the  proper  size  will  flow  through  it  without  dam- 
age. An  obstruction  will  cause  the  water  to  rise 
and  overflow  where  it  is  not  wanted.  We  can 
readily  see  that,  just  as  an  obstruction  will  dam 
a  stream  to  overflowing,  so  the  libido  of  the  child 
or  of  the  adult  may  be  blocked  by  an  obstruction 
and  dammed  till  it  overflows.    This  produces  a 

29 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

disorder  in  life's  development  caused  by  tlie  ina- 
bility to  fulfil  all  its  requirements.  The  result 
in  any  human  being  is  likely  to  be  illness,  either 
physical  or  mental.  There  will  be  a  complete  dif- 
fusion of  the  libido,  a  dissipation  and  weakening 
of  the  urge  of  life,  and  when  the  mind  retires  abso- 
lutely from  reality  and  growth,  a  person  is  called 
insane,  and  was  formerly  regarded  by  the  world 
at  large  as  incurable. 


30 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DEVELOPMENT   OF   REPRESSION 

The  child's  life  must  follow  a  path  directed 
by  training,  but  to  the  parent  the  results  are  for 
a  long  time  so  invisible  that  the  parents'  efforts 
seem  in  size  like  drops  of  water  compared  with 
the  ocean  which  is  the  size  of  the  result  aimed  at. 
The  results  of  the  parents'  efforts,  however,  are 
cumulative  and  are  always  equal  to  the  efforts; 
only  it  is  as  hard  for  the  parents  to  see  the  im- 
mediate results  as  it  would  be  to  see  the  physical 
effect  on  the  wall  of  a  room  of  the  sound  waves 
carrying  his  words  of  advice  or  correction.  The 
part  of  child-training  so  discouraging  to  parents 
is  the  impossibility  of  seeing  an  immediate  con- 
crete effect  of  their  word  or  act.  It  is  impossible 
that  the  effort  of  today  on  the  part  of  the  parent 
should  have  a  result  today  upon  the  child — at  any 
rate,  a  result  considered  adequate  and  sufficient 
by  the  parent.  It  is  quite  as  impossible  that  the 
effort  of  today  should  not  have  an  invisible  re- 
sult today,  and  a  visible  result  tomorrow  and  next 
year  and  in  twenty-five  years.  The  result  visible 
tomorrow  is  so  small  as  to  make  a  pathetic  con- 
trast with  the  intensity  of  the  effort;  the  result 
visible  next  year  is  greater,  but  then  the  parent 

31 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

has  forgotten  the  treatment  given  the  child  a  year 
ago,  and  does  not  connect  the  1919  behaviour  of 
the  child  with  the  1918  advice.  If  it  could  be 
deeply  enough  impressed  upon  the  parents  that 
almost  all  mental  effects  are  long  distance  effects, 
even  when  they  are  visible,  it  would  do  much  to 
reassure  them  in  their  confident  treatment  of 
their  children.  Also  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  immediate  effects  are  produced,  never- 
theless, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  are  not  per- 
ceptible. 

EFFECT  OF  ACTION  SURE 

Their  not  being  perceptible  arises  from  two 
causes.  The  first  is  that  it  takes  a  long  time  for 
a  character  to  be  built.  The  second  is  the  inevi- 
table unconscious  tendency  in  every  one  to  resist 
an  immediate  acknowledgment  of  the  persuasive 
force  of  some  other  person.  Every  child  when 
positively,  either  gently  or  aggressively,  told  to 
do  something  by  teacher  or  parent  reacts  to  that 
expression  of  authority  in  the  only  way  possible 
for  it,  that  is,  by  a  natural  antagonism,  unless  the 
expression  of  authority  in  the  beginning  was  the 
best  for  the  child  life.  As  a  plant  or  vine  always 
grows  toward  the  creative  sunlight,  so  does  a 
child  grow  toward  a  proper  environment  unless 
previous  years  have  held  back  the  child's  energy 
and  stunted  growth.  It  is  absolutely  universal  in 
all  but  the  most  highly  civilized  persons,  both 

32 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  O^F  REPRESSION 

young  and  old.  It  accounts  for  the  necessity  of 
training  the  soldier  to  act  promptly  at  the  officer's 
word  of  command.  His  natural  antagonism  has 
to  be  drilled  out  of  him.  It  is  removed  in  other 
circumstances  in  a  spectacular  manner  in  *  liberty 
loan  drives''  and  in  revival  meetings.  In  such 
circumstances  the  individual's  natural  and  abso- 
lutely blameless  antagonism  to  complying  with 
the  verbal  suggestions  of  the  authority  is  swept 
aside  for  the  moment,  and  acting  instinctively 
and  imitatively  he  follows  the  direction  given 
him. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  the  effects  of  human 
suasion  are  always  retarded,  if  compared  with 
the  parents'  desire  for  immediately  perceptible 
results.  Considering  the  number  of  elements 
which  have  to  be  modified  in  changing  so  com- 
plicated a  thing  as  human  conduct  it  is  hardly 
right  to  call  them  retarded,  although  they  neces- 
sarily seem  so.  It  is,  therefore,  all  the  more  im- 
portant that  parents  should  be  absolutely  secure 
in  their  realization,  first  of  the  necessity  of  con- 
tinuing their  etforts,  and  second  of  the  fact  that 
no  effort  is  without  its  result.  In  fact,  it  cannot 
be  too  much  emphasized  and  no  action  of  any 
kind  is  without  its  present  (imperceptible)  and 
later  (perceptible)  result,  a  result  which  is,  how- 
ever, frequently  attributed  to  the  wrong  cause, 
through  the  forgetfulness  or  imperfect  observa- 
tion of  the  parents. 

33 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

WHERE  THOUGHTS  GO 

What  becomes  of  the  thoughts  of  an  individual 
when  they  retire  from  reality  as  in  a  delirium? 
"Why  do  they  change  in  character?  It  long  re- 
mained a  mystery.  We  knew  the  thoughts  still 
continued,  but  they  took  on  a  different  nature  and 
seemed  to  us  confused.  If  one  familiar  with  nerv- 
ous and  mental  troubles  listens  to  a  person  talking 
in  his  sleep,  he  finds  the  methods  of  the  sleeper's 
thinking  similar  to  delirium,  or  the  wandering 
thoughts  of  an  insane  patient,  for  in  both  cases 
the  mind  is  not  working  in  terms  of  reality,  as 
our  normal  mind  works  when  we  are  awake.  Five 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  the  Greek  philoso- 
pher Heraclitus  said,  ^^For  those  who  are  awake 
only  one  universal  world  exists.  During  sleep 
every  one  returns  to  his  own.*'  It  has  taken 
2,500  years  to  realize  the  truth  of  Heraclitus' 
words,  and  at  last  men  are  gradually  becoming 
aware  of  the  fact  that  we  live  not  only  in  our 
waking  world,  but  at  times  in  another  world,  that 
of  our  dreams.  We  know  that  great  nervous 
shocks  have  sometimes  proven  too  difficult  for  a 
person's  mentality.  We  say  such  a  person  loses 
his  mind,  becomes  unbalanced,  a  statement  which 
is  generally  accepted.  But  the  question  remains, 
How  does  he  lose  his  mind?  Where  does  it  go? 
What  becomes  of  it?  He  does  not  die.  On  the 
contrary,  he  continues  living  and  thinking,  but 

34 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  REPRESSION 

differently.  ^Ye  can  more  truthfully  say  that  his 
mind  is  not  lost,  but  is  changed  from  conscious  to 
unconscious  thinking,  a  topic  of  which  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  later.  And  when  a  person  is  upset 
or  has  become  unbalanced,  the  same  figure  of 
speech  shows  that  his  mind,  in  being  upset,  falls 
from  the  conscious  to  the  unconscious  variety  of 
thinking.  When  the  conscious  mind  is  empty  and 
vacant  the  balance  has  a  greater  weight  thrown 
on  the  unconscious  scale  and  it  goes  down,  while 
the  conscious  scale  goes  up  in  the  air. 


UNCONSCIOUS  THINKING 

The  unconscious  thinking  then,  as  our  figure  of 
speech  suggests,  belongs  to  a  lower  level.  It  is 
hidden  from  our  consciousness.  We  are  abso- 
lutely unaware  of  the  wishes  and  problems  of  the 
unconscious.  They  are  repressed  and  put  away 
as  impossible  of  fulfilment.  The  conflicts  in  the 
unconscious  smoulder,  like  a  smothered  fire  in  a 
bale  of  cotton,  unseen  and  yet  burning.  Con- 
scious wishes  pull  us  one  way,  the  unconscious 
pull  us  in  the  other  direction.  The  wishes  of  the 
conscious  thought  are  governed  by  the  religious 
and  ethical  education  received  from  our  parents, 
our  teachers  and  our  governments.  Such  educa- 
tion is  necessary  to  a  child,  he  must  be  instructed 
in  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong  which  his  ances- 
tors to  the  best  of  their  experience  have  worked 

35 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

out  as  needful  to  preserve  the  race.  But  wMe 
the  child  and  the  adult  follow  these  laws,  enforced 
by  a  superior  power,  they  still  would  like  to  fol- 
low their  natural  inclinations,  and  thus  the  con- 
scious wishes  are  repressed  and  apparently  for- 
gotten. In  the  unconscious  they  have  all  the 
time  existed  and  have  accumulated,  smoulder- 
ing, irritating  and  sometimes  bursting  forth 
when  the  individual  is  not  able  to  effect  a 
complete  repression.  They  result  in  illness, 
criminal  acts,  insanity  or  any  of  the  countless 
irregularities  of  living.  With  all  the  ideals 
and  higher  aims  of  life  there  is  in  each  adult  a 
lower  layer  of  wishes,  which  in  childhood  is  form- 
ing and  is  very  near  the  surface,  wishes  for 
things  he  would  like  to  have  but  cannot  obtain, 
for  things  he  would  like  to  do  but  is  not  allowed. 
Children  do  not  give  up  wanting  these  unobtain- 
able things,  nor  do  adults,  but  repress  the  wishes 
for  them;  that  is,  they  still  exist  but  are  not 
spoken  or  thought  of  consciously.  As  the  child 
grows,  these  repressed  wishes  accumulate.  As 
our  wants  change,  many  of  them  fade  away,  but 
the  more  vital  ones  continue  through  the  entire 
life,  so  deeply  repressed  and  buried  from  con- 
sciousness that  we  do  not  know  they  exist,  and 
yet,  if  our  environment  is  such  that  our  vital  in- 
stincts in  childhood  for  self-preservation,  or  in 
adulthood  for  race  preservation,  cannot  be  satis- 
fied, they  still  disturb  our  consciousness.     This 

36 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  REPRESSION 

accumulation  of  repressed  wishes,  which  are 
often  of  an  animal  nature,  and  which  we  have  ap- 
parently forgotten,  constitute  the  unconscious.  If 
the  environment  of  a  child  is  not  too  difi&cult,  not 
too  weakening  from  improper  or  uneven  disci- 
pline, if  the  force  of  growth,  both  mental  and 
physical,  the  urge  and  interest  of  life,  the  libido, 
is  allowed  a  proper  outlet,  and  the  child  has  been 
taught  a  proper  control  of  his  libido,  then  he  will 
move  on  in  successful  growth.  The  repressed 
wish  in  the  unconscious  must  be  strong  indeed  in 
forcing  a  person  against  the  power  of  his  own 
rationality  to  do  that  for  which  he  knows  he  will 
be  punished,  perhaps  even  lose  his  life.  Emotion 
and  intellect  here  come  sharply  into  contrast.  We 
judge  it  weakness  of  character  when  the  uncon- 
scious wish  becomes  too  strong  to  be  ruled  by  the 
intellect;  the  heart  has  ruled  the  head,  whereas 
the  head  should  rule  the  heart. 


EEPEESSION 

Psychoanalysis  shows  us  the  parallel  between 
the  nervous  child  and  the  criminal.  In  both  the 
repression  of  the  libido  has  been  too  great  in- 
stead of  being  used  with  self-control.  Repressed 
thoughts  and  wishes  are  uncontrolled  thoughts 
and  wishes  shut  up,  intended  to  be  hidden  away 
from  sight  and  sound,  in  the  unconscious,  so  that 
they  do  not  lead  the  individual  to  commit  acts  of 

37 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHttD 

lawlessness.  The  difference  between  repression 
and  self-control  is  enormous,  but  yet  not  generally 
understood.  An  example  may  be  given  of  a  wild 
animal,  untamed  and  not  broken  to  domestic  use, 
such  as  the  horse.  Running  at  large  he  would 
trample  down  life  and  be  a  great  danger.  If  he 
is  caught  and  shut  up  he  is  repressed  but  still 
wild;  if  tamed,  broken  to  harness,  he  can  be  con- 
trolled, goes  at  our  bidding  and  becomes  a  most 
useful  beast  of  burden  to  help  supply  our  needs. 
Like  steam,  or  any  other  of  nature's  forces,  the 
libido  when  compressed,  bursts  out,  doing  great 
damage  to  whatever  encloses  it.  It  is  an  irre- 
sistible force  which  we  must  tame  and  control, 
so  that  it  may  serve  us.  The  individual  must 
drive  his  libido  or,  like  an  unbroken  horse,  it  will 
run  away  with  him.  The  child 's  libido  is  attached 
to  himself,  being  almost  exclusively  nutritional  in 
its  nature,  and  to  his  parents  who  contribute 
toward  his  own  personal  and  individual  develop- 
ment. At  adolescence  the  libido  naturaUy,  be- 
cause of  the  reproductive  urge,  seeks  to  become 
detached  from  the  childhood  love  of  self  and  of 
parents  and  to  attach  itself  to  some  thing  or  per- 
son other  than  the  family.  Modern  parents  do 
not  know  that  the  word  ^'parents"  means  those 
who  procreate  the  child,  and  that  when  the  physi- 
cal need  for  the  parent  ceases  at  about  twelve  to 
fourteen  years  they  cease  automatically  to  become 
parents  in  the  true  sense  and  become,  or  should 

38 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  REPRESSION 

become,  an  only  sliglitly  distinguishable  part  of 
the  child's  (now  the  individuaPs)  reality.  The 
parent  as  procreator  is  necessary,  however,  not 
merely  at  the  time  of  conception  but  for  much  of 
the  directive  influence  which  creates  character  up 
to  the  time  when  the  child  should  be  pushed  out 
of  the  parental  nest.  The  erroneous  views  of 
parents  have  been  well  expressed  by  Meredith  in 
the  following  words: 

**It  is  difficult  for  those  who  think  very  earn- 
estly for  their  children  to  know  when  their  chil- 
dren are  thinking  on  their  own  account.  The  ex- 
ercise of  their  volition  we  construe  as  a  revolt. 
Our  love  does  not  like  to  be  invalided  and  deposed 
from  its  command,  and  here  I  think  yonder  old 
thrush  on  the  lawn  who  has  just  kicked  the  last 
of  her  lank  offspring  out  of  the  nest  to  go  shift 
for  itself,  much  the  kindest  of  the  two,  though 
sentimental  people  do  shrug  their  shoulders  at 
these  unsentimental  acts  of  the  creatures  who 
never  wander  from  nature.  Now  excess  of  obedi- 
ence is,  to  one  who  manages  exquisitely,  as  bad  as 
insurrection. ' '  ^ 

Nature's  effort  to  separate  the  child's  libido 
from  the  original  family  ties  is  expressed  in  the 
first  love  affair.  Also  in  the  desire  to  escape 
from  authority,  to  live  independently,  to  run  away 
for  the  love  of  adventure,  in  short,  to  experience 

^The  Ordeal  of  Richard  Feverel,  N.  Y.,  1906,  p.  275. 

39 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

all  the  fulness  of  life.  These  are  all  paths  lead- 
ing to  the  bridge  which  must  be  crossed  from 
childhood  into  the  great  unknown  world,  so  beau- 
tifully described  by  Longfellow,  w^ho  had  an  intui- 
tive knowledge  of  the  adolescent  fears  when  he 
wrote : 

*  *  Standing  with  reluctant  feet 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet, 
Womanhood  and  childhood  fleet! 

Gazing  with  a  timid  glance, 
On  the  brooklet's  swift  advance, 
On  the  river's  broad  expanse! 


Seest  thou  shadows  sailing  by, 
As  the  dove,  with  startled  eye, 
Sees  the  falcon's  shadow  fly?" 

The  beginning  of  repression  in  the  child  is  the 
beginning  of  the  accumulation  of  unconscious 
wishes,  which  we  express  in  our  symbolic  thoughts 
and  actions.  In  joy  and  laughter  repression  is 
relieved,  but  in  cursing  and  anger  it  is  increased, 
as  I  will  attempt  to  explain  in  the  following  chap- 
ter. 


40 


CHAPTER  in 

SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

Very  young  cliildren  do  not  make,  as  adults  do, 
clear  distinctions  between  persons  and  things. 
The  infant  gradually  learns  the  difference  be- 
tween his  toes,  his  head  and  the  chair  on  which  he 
bumps  it.  And  when  a  distinction  is  made  be- 
tween self  and  things  that  are  not  self,  the  objects 
appear  more  like  persons  than  things.  The  young 
child  speaks  and  thinks  of  things  as  if  they  had 
thoughts  and  sensations  like  his  own.  This  per- 
sonification, or  likening  of  inanimate  things, 
shades  off  in  adulthood  into  a  use  of  metaphor 
and  simile  as  when  we  say,  knowing  we  do  not 
speak  literally,  the  whispering  breeze,  the  mur- 
muring brook,  the  leaping  flame,  the  mother  earth, 
the  road  climbs  up  from  the  valley,  the  wind 
drives  the  clouds,  the  sunlight  dances  on  the  wa- 
ter, **the  moon  shepherds  the  stars,"  ^  '^How 
sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank."^ 
The  attempt  to  be  absolutely  literal  in  describing 
anything  is  foredoomed  to  failure  only  because  in 
order  to  do  so  we  should  have  to  use  individual 
words  for  each  individual  object.     The  Arabs 

1  Vergil,  ^neid,  I,  608. 

2  Merchcmt  of  Venice,  v.  i. 

41 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHLrD 

have  done  so,  approximately,  in  having  over  2,000 
words  to  denote  different  kinds  of  horses. 

Indeed  it  is  not  alone  because  our  language  is 
inadequate  that  we  cannot  rid  ourselves  of  the 
tendency  to  read  our  actions  and  emotions  into 
the  objects  we  perceive.  The  tendency  is  a  very- 
deep  and  natural  one,  having  been  inherited  from 
our  remotest  ancestors,  who  thought  just  as  a 
present-day  child  may  think,  that  a  living  spirit, 
having  personal  attributes,  is  in  all  inanimate 
objects.  The  literature  of  primitive  races  shows 
they  found  *' tongues  in  trees,  sermons  in  stones, 
books  in  the  running  brooks"  and  life  in  every- 
thing. We  know  that  in  the  childhood  of  the 
race,  and  in  the  childhood  of  the  individual  man, 
the  mind  works  the  same,  and  is  subject  to  the 
same  phases  of  development. 


PEIMITFVE   THOUGHT 

There  is  accordingly  a  great  difference  in  this 
respect  of  personification  between  adult  and  child- 
ish thinking.  The  remarkable  fact  is,  however, 
that  both  kinds  go  on  side  by  side  in  many  adults, 
the  archaic  type  having  greater  influence  on  the 
actions  of  some  individuals,  and  the  modem  in 
others.  To  express  it  otherwise,  the  conscious 
mind  of  man  has  been  educated  according  to  re- 
ligious and  ethical  ideas,  while  the  unconscious 
mind,  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge  in  our  wak- 

42 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

ing  hours,  unless  specially  warned  of  it,  has  had 
no  education.  The  unconscious  mind  of  the  adult 
works  in  the  same  archaic  modes,  and  without 
moral  laws,  as  does  the  conscious  and  unconscious 
mind  of  the  child,  or  for  that  matter  as  did  the 
minds  of  our  primeval  ancestors.  Modern  adults, 
just  as  primeval  adults  did  and  modern  children 
do,  in  the  unconscious  desire  to  kill  or  destroy 
whatever  interferes  with  their  gratification,  but 
the  intellectual  power  has  become  sufficiently  om- 
niscient to  see  with  comprehensive  glance  the  re- 
sults of  such  an  existence  without  law  and  order. 
When  we  lose  consciousness,  either  in  sleep,  in 
delirium,  or  under  the  influence  of  anaesthetics, 
our  minds  are  not  blank  but  are  working  rapidly. 
A  person  talking  in  his  sleep  will  give  verbal  ex- 
pression to  the  most  vital  wishes,  which  would 
shock  his  waking  mind.  They  find  utterance  but 
do  not  enter  his  own  consciousness.  If  they  do, 
they  are  always  expressed  in  symbolic  form.  The 
most  direct  path  for  these  primordial  desires  to 
find  their  way  into  the  consciousness  of  the  person 
who  has  them  is  through  the  dream  of  the  night. 
In  the  form  of  animals  and  of  inanimate  things, 
or  of  other  people  than  those  really  intended  by 
the  dream  wish,  persons,  and  even  abstract  ideas 
are  represented.  It  has  been  definitely  ascer- 
tained that  the  thoughts  that  occur  in  sleep  are 
concerned  primarily  with  problems  and  unfulfilled 
wishes.    They  are  the  problems  presented  by,  and 

43 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILJ) 

the  desires  existing  in,  the  archaic  unconscious, 
but  problems  which  the  dreamer's  waking  life 
could  not  solve  and  desires  which  his  waking  ac- 
tivities could  not  fulfil. 


COMPOSITE  NATURE 

The  indirect,  figurative  or  symbolical  nature  of 
the  thoughts  that  come  to  consciousness  in  the 
dream,  is  shown  in  many  ways.  Various  persons 
in  the  dream  generally  symbolize  some  quality  of 
the  dreamer  himself.  If  he  dreams  he  saw  Mr. 
X.  and  Mr.  A.,  the  associations  with  Mr.  X.  and 
Mr.  A.  are  frequently  somewhat  as  follows :  **Mr. 
X.  is  a  very  undesirable  acquaintance  because  of 
his  stinginess,  meanness,  and  dishonorable  deal- 
ings. Mr.  A.  would  be  a  fine  fellow,  but  he  never 
has  the  courage  of  his  convictions  and  never 
forms  a  definite  conclusion.''  This  means  that 
the  dream  is  attempting  to  tell  the  dreamer  **You 
have  those  qualities  but  do  not  realize  them."  It 
is  much  as  if  the  dream  were  a  different  person- 
ality. It  is  indeed  the  personality  each  one  has 
in  him  but  does  not  know  he  has.  In  this  way  he 
gives  himself  an  estimation  of  what  is  really  his 
own  valuation  of  certain  of  his  own  qualities  as 
they  appear  to  a  part  of  his  mind  which  is  awake 
when  he  is  not  awake. 

For  instance,  in  a  hospital  ward  one  of  the 
men  patients  had  been  visited  by  his  fiancee.  That 

U 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

night  the  nurse  said  to  me:  ^^That  chap  talks  in 
his  sleep.  Perhaps  he  will  interest  you/'  Later 
when  the  lights  were  low  we  heard  a  voice  call 
** Helen."  Moving  the  screens  around  his  bed 
awoke  him.  He  was  annoyed  and  said  he  had 
been  dreaming  he  was  in  the  old  orchard  at  home 
and  a  big  cow  stood  there  looking  at  him.  Helen 
was  the  name  of  his  fiancee.  He  had  symbolized 
her  as  a  cow,  thereby  expressing  indirectly  his 
strong  unconscious  wish  to  live  his  childhood 
over  again  with  Helen,  who  would  thus  have  to 
play  the  dual  role  of  wife  and  mother.  There  is 
nothing  extraordinary  in  the  cow's  impersonating 
two  women,  as  every  dream  image  may  be  com- 
posite, representing  more  than  one  person. 

IDENTmCATION 

Something  of  this  reading  himself  into  his  ob- 
jects begins  with  the  child  at  a  very  early  age,  for 
when  he  begins  to  talk  he  takes  many  inanimate 
things  to  be  alive  and  active.  He  will  scold  his 
toys.  If  he  bumps  himself  against  the  table  it  is 
as  much  the  table's  doings  as  his.  When  we  trip 
over  an  obstacle  and  hurt  the  shinbone,  how  much 
satisfaction  we  feel  in  giving  a  good  kick  to  the 
offending  obstacle,  for  down  deep  in  us  all  is  the 
feeling  that  the  obstacle  should  have  gotten  out 
of  the  way  and  was  malicious  in  hurting  us.  Intel- 
lectually we  know  that  the  rocker  on  a  chair  is 

45 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

inanimate,  but  when  we  are  bruised  and  sore 
from  coming  in  contact  with  one  we  feel  that  the 
protruding  thing  molested  us.  The  intellectual 
knowledge  that  the  rocker  is  inanimate  is  a  con- 
scious thought,  but  the  feeling  that  the  rocking- 
chair  should  have  moved  aside  and  not  stood  in 
our  path  to  hurt  us  comes  from  the  unconscious. 
Not  only  do  we  all  thus  endow  inanimate  things 
like  rocking-chairs  with  life,  but  in  a  dream 
brought  by  a  patient,  the  rocking-chair  is  a  symbol 
of  something  more  than  a  chair,  and  to  learn  what 
the  chair  symbolizes  in  the  unconscious  we  must 
trace  back  the  thoughts  which  come  to  mind  con- 
cerning it.  We  call  these  thoughts  **  associa- 
tions" and  the  associations  with  a  rocking-chair 
were:  ^^ Cradle,  childhood,  mother."  The  asso- 
ciations with  the  foot  were  ^  *  Getting  somewhere, 
it  carries  us  through  life,  takes  us  over  a  path  we 
are  going."  Now,  when  we  analyzed  the  wish 
to  kick  the  rocking-chair  we  found  the  conscious 
wish  came  from  the  unconscious  wish  to  kick  the 
mother  out  of  our  way.  She  had  prevented  us 
from  getting  somewhere  in  the  path  we  wished 
to  tread,  and  should  have  moved  aside  to  let  us 
go  on  in  the  world  as  we  wished,  but  with  mali- 
cious intent  she  has  stopped  our  progress.  Or, 
while  she  may  have  surrounded  us  with  such  an 
atmosphere  of  ideal  sweetness  and  goodness  that 
clings  to  us,  we  have  to  put  her  influence  aside  to 
make  progress.     She  wants  us  to  notice  her  and 

46 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

to  remember  that  she  has  the  power  of  hurting  us, 
a  point  of  view  on  our  part  which  will  be  under- 
stood from  the  parent-complex  which  I  have  de- 
scribed in  another  chapter. 


THE    CENSOR 

In  the  sphere  of  the  unconscious  lies  the 
hidden  cause  of  nervous  and  mental  troubles. 
This  is  the  case  because  the  health  of  the  body- 
depends  upon  the  perfect  condition  of  the  func- 
tioning of  the  nerves.  The  energy  which  trav- 
erses them,  called  the  libido,  requires  an  un- 
obstructed passage  for  the  outflow  of  the  creative 
energy  which  is  expressed  in  acts  of  friendship, 
affection  and  s^Tupathy,  and  in  the  emotions 
which  these  acts  arouse.  If  these  creative  emo- 
tions are  in  any  way  held  fast  within  the  body 
and  do  not  find  opportunity  for  expression,  the 
free  expression  of  libido  is  blocked.  Through  the 
technique  of  psychoanalysis  is  discovered  the  at- 
tachment in  the  unconscious,  the  obstruction 
which  blocks  the  free  expression  of  the  creative 
emotions.  In  the  case  of  dreams  the  thoughts 
of  the  unconscious  meet  the  conscious  at  the  mo- 
ment of  awakening  and  arouse  the  conscience. 
This  awakening  conscience  instantly  rejects  the 
wishes  which  the  mind  has  been  dwelling  on  dur- 
ing sleep  because,  according  to  the  conventions  of 
the    social   environment,    these   wishes    are    im- 

47 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

proper.  We  call  this  element  of  conscience  the 
censor  because  it  either  blots  out  the  frankly  ani- 
mal desires,  arising  in  the  unconscious,  thus  leav- 
ing us  unaware  of  them,  or  else  it  transforms 
them  by  means  of  the  symbolism  of  the  dream 
so  that  we  do  not  recognize  them  for  what  they 
are.    Thus  again  we  are  unaware  of  them. 


THE  CONFLICT 

But  the  power  of  the  unconscious  is  elemental 
in  its  strength  and  it  constantly  pushes  outward 
for  expression  in  consciousness.  It  is  always 
trying  in  some  way  to  evade  or  avoid  the  censor 
or  deceive  him  into  allowing  the  thoughts  to  enter 
consciousness.  We  speak"  sometimes  of  this  con- 
flict between  the  unconscious  desire  and  the  cen- 
sor as  the  conflict  of  good  and  evil.  We  listen  to 
the  sermons  of  the  still  small  voice,  without  in  the 
least  understanding  the  significance  of  the  strug- 
gle or  realizing  the  identity  of  the  two  contest- 
ants. If  we  could  clearly  see  within  us  the  Twen- 
tieth Century  struggling  with  10,000  years  B.C., 
we  should  not  have  so  sorry  a  time  of  it. 

When  the  life  energy  has  been  properly  trained 
in  such  a  way  that,  in  place  of  primeval  means  of 
satisfaction,  it  freely  takes  the  forms  of  substi- 
tute satisfaction  supplied  by  modern  civilized 
life,  the  life  energy  or  libido  is  free  in  its  ex- 
pression and  helps  us  with  its  marvellous  vitality 

48 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

toward  the  filling  out  of  a  well  rounded  life. 
When  the  libido,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  sti- 
fled and  buried  in  the  unconscious,  then  the  primi- 
tive emotions  of  jealousy,  envy,  and  hatred  pre- 
vail and  stunt  the  life  by  depriving  it  of  its  in- 
ward and  outward  growth.  They  surely  stunt  the 
life  because  in  civilized  communities  the  outward 
acts  of  malice,  which  would  have  in  prehistoric 
times  been  performed,  are  prohibited  and  the 
violence  which  would  have  been  wreaked  upon  an 
object  is  now  virtually  turned  upon  the  individual 
himself,  who  experiences  these  emotions.  That 
fear  and  rage  have  an  injurious  effect  upon  the 
body  has  already  been  mentioned.  This  is  quite 
as  injurious  an  effect,  if  not  even  more  so,  when 
the  destructive  emotions  are  suppressed  as  when 
they  are  worked  off  in  destructive  acts.  Here 
lies  the  gist  of  the  whole  thing.  No  emotions 
should  be  swallowed.  The  results  of  doing  that 
are  a  ** rotten"  disposition  mentioned  elsewhere. 
All  emotions  should  be  given  free  play  under  con- 
trol. Therefore,  only  the  constructive  ones  which 
help  in  the  process  of  building  the  tissues  of  the 
body  should  be  cultivated.  The  means  whereby 
this  substitution  may  be  effected  are  outlined 
elsewhere. 

In  almost  all  forms  of  nervousness  there  is  a 
conflict  going  on  in  the  patient's  life  between  the 
two  forms  of  thought,  the  archaic  and  the  mod- 
em.   One  of  these,  in  the  unconscious,  is  pulling 

49 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

the  nervous  patient  back,  and  yet  he  is  absolutely 
unaware  of  it.  The  other  is  the  natural  urge  to 
outward  growth  which  is  striving  for  expression. 
This  identifies  the  natural  urge  with  the  force  of 
conscience  representing  social  development  in  the 
soul  of  the  individual.  For  the  natural  urge  or 
libido  is,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  both  in  har- 
mony with  and  at  variance  with  the  selfish  de- 
sires of  the  individual.  The  self-preservative  or 
nutritional  aspect  of  the  libido  sometimes  comes 
into  direct  conflict  with  the  race-preservative  or 
reproductive,  and  at  no  time  more  than  the  pres- 
ent, when  the  birth  of  a  child  is  of  so  vast  an 
economic  importance  in  the  lives  of  the  parents. 
When  a  person  is  pulled  two  ways  by  equal 
opposing  forces,  he  stands  still  as  in  a  tug-of- 
war.  Thus,  if  the  unconscious  pulls  him  strong- 
est he  grows  more  and  more  nervous  as  the  years 
advance  and  the  urge  of  conscious  life  grows 
less-— the  urge  which  is  the  call  of  his  fellows  to 
get  up  and  out  and  accomplish  something  which 
is  socially  productive.  His  nervousness  is  due 
to  his  weakness  in  the  conflict  which  in  spite  of 
age  still  continues  between  the  individual  and  so- 
ciety. This  nervousness  or  mental  unbalancing  is 
inevitable,  because  the  libido  will  regress  and  be- 
come primitive  in  its  nature  and  stronger  than 
the  censor  of  consciousness,  through  the  weak- 
ening of  the  ties  between  the  individual  and 
society. 

50 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 


THE  PHANTASY 


When  the  real,  which  is  the  social  and  con- 
scious, life  of  an  individual  is  neither  satisfied 
nor  happy,  his  mind  is  more  and  more  occupied 
with  what  is  called  '^building  castles  in  the  air.'' 
We  call  such  thinking  ^'phantasying.''  It  is  a 
make-believe  existence  and  is  seen  in  day  dream- 
ing and  in  the  night  dreams  as  well.  One  becomes 
rich,  famous  and  beautiful,  has  revenge  on  those 
he  envies,  destroys  any  one  or  anything  in  his 
way,  and  surrounds  himself  with  a  fairyland  of 
music  and  beauty  and  whatever  pleases  his  senses. 
In  day  dreaming  a  person  often  becomes  so  in- 
tense in  his  phantasies  that  he  is  not  aware  of 
those  around  him.  I  have  watched  patients  get 
rid  of  unpleasant  duties  by  bringing  on  a  dreamy 
speU,  when  they  felt  as  though  they  were  floating, 
the  mind  drifting  like  a  boat  on  a  lake  without  a 
current,  the  face  without  expression,  the  eyes  un- 
seeing and  dreamy.  It  requires  strong,  vigorous 
thoughts  to  bring  such  a  person  back  to  reality, 
and  then  reality  must  be  made  sufficiently  inter- 
esting to  keep  such  a  weak  mind  directed  toward 
it.  The  phantasies  of  day  dreams,  as  well  as 
night  dreams,  closely  resemble  tales  of  mythology 
and  fairy  lore,  when  the  race  was  in  the  child- 
hood of  its  development.  How  many  working 
girls  have  had  Cinderella  dreams,  how  many  chil- 
dren with  despotic  government  at  home  have  had 

51 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

Jack  the  Giant  Killer  dreams,  and  adoles- 
cent dreams  of  Aladdin  and  Ms  Wonderful 
Lamp? 

The  dream  is  the  via  regia  to  the  unconscious, 
because  in  the  dream  images  we  have  as  nearly 
as  possible  the  manifestation  of  what  has  been 
repressed  into  it.  The  dream  uses  an  older  form 
of  thought  which  is  a  survival  of  archaic  modes 
of  expression, .  for  as  the  body  bears  traces  of 
anatomical  and  physiological  development  so  does 
the  human  mind  from  the  threshold  of  antiquity 
show  psychological  development.  We  have  in- 
stances of  earlier  forms  of  thought  in  the  sym- 
bolism of  allegories  and  parables  of  the  Bible  by 
which  moral  or  spiritual  relations  are  typically 
set  forth  with  the  essential  qualities  of  brevity 
and  definiteness  employed  in  dream  pictures.  A 
beautiful  example  of  symbolism  in  the  parable 
is  in  2  Sam.  XII,  1-9,  and  an  equally  beautiful 
allegory  in  the  80th  Psalm  tells  of  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  children  of  Israel  from  Egypt  as  the 
planting  and  growth  of  a  vine : 

*^Thou  hast  brought  a  vine  out  of  Egypt, 
thou  hast  cast  out  the  heathen  and  planted  it. 

**Thou  preparedst  room  before  it,  and 
didst  cause  it  to  take  deep  root,  and  it  filled 
the  land.  The  hills  were  covered  with  the 
shadow  of  it,  and  the  boughs  thereof  were 
like  the  goodly  cedars." 

52 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

In  the  fable  we  again  see  symbolic  thinking 
where  irrational  beings  and  sometimes  inanimate 
objects  are,  for  the  purpose  of  moral  instruction, 
made  to  act  and  speak  with  human  interests  and 
passions.  In  the  fable  human  passions  and  ac- 
tions are  attributed  to  beasts,  while  in  the  para- 
ble the  lower  creations  are  used  to  illustrate  the 
higher  life.  Likewise  fairy  tales  and  myths  arose 
in  a  primitive  age  and  go  back  to  the  remotest 
antiquity.  There  is  a  close  alSinity  between  the 
fable,  allegory,  parable,  fairy  tales  and  our 
dreams  in  that  they  amplify  and  elaborate  moral 
instruction.  The  dream  has  a  moral  message  to 
the  sleeper  and  contains  the  undeveloped  part  of 
our  minds,  also  the  repressed  part  made  up  of 
whatever  each  life  has  repressed  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  fitting  it  in  with  the  conscious  life 
that  he  has  to  lead.  Some  people  repress  the 
best  part  of  themselves  owing  to  mistaken  ideals 
of  duty,  and  in  them  the  repressed  part  contains 
pictures  of  helplessness,  imprisonment,  confine- 
ment, fright,  fear. 

In  the  dream  we  trace  a  compensating  function 
of  the  unconscious,  so  that  those  thoughts  and 
tendencies  of  a  personality,  which  in  conscious 
life  are  too  seldom  recognized,  come  spontane- 
ously into  action  during  sleep  when  the  conscious 
process  is  disconnected. 

The  question  might  be  asked,  How  can  the 
dream  contain  a  message  to  the  sleeper  if  it  can- 

53 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

not  be  understood?  To  this  I  must  answer  that 
understanding  does  not  always  consist  in  an  in- 
tellectual process  but  in  an  emotional  reaction. 

There  are  many  other  things  in  dreams  be- 
sides repressed  wishes.  There  is  much  future  in 
them,  also  much  of  the  racial  past  never  before 
conscious,  therefore  never  repressed. 

In  the  dream  thoughts  we  see  what  has  been 
most  successful,  in  passing  the  censor,  and  we 
have  but  to  remove  the  disguises  from  the 
thoughts  as  presented  in  the  dream  to  find  out 
what  the  symbols  of  the  dream  really  mean,  to 
be  able  to  discern  the  trends  of  the  unconscious 
as  they  actually  are.  The  dream  is  the  best  way, 
and  almost  the  only  way,  of  showing  the  patient 
the  cause  of  his  neurosis.  The  neurosis  itself  is, 
to  be  sure,  one  of  the  manifestations  of  the  un- 
conscious desire,  but  it  is  a  very  elaborate  one 
and  sometimes  impossible  to  unravel.  The  dream, 
on  the  contrary,  is  an  epitome  of  the  conditions 
causing  the  neurosis,  and  when  analyzed,  under- 
stood and  grasped  as  a  unity,  can  be  used  as  a 
starting  point  for  numberless  excursions  into  the 
unconscious,  by  means  of  the  **free  associations." 
It  is  like  a  plan  of  a  city  by  which  we  can  clearly 
see  how  .0  get  to  any  part  of  it.  The  dream  has 
multitudinous  avenues  leading  to  all  the  districts 
of  the  soul.  Working  out  the  psychology  of 
thought  by  association  of  ideas  is  not  original 
with  the  modern  psychologists,  it  was  used  by 

54 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

Aristotle.  It  is  stated  that  he  worked  out  a  fairly 
complete  system  of  psychology,  and  stated  an  im- 
portant psychological  principle — that  of  the  as- 
sociation of  ideas. 

So  true  an  expression  of  the  real  unconscious 
trends  is  the  dream  that  the  experienced  psycho- 
analyst can  clearly  see  during  the  narration  of 
the  patient  ^s  first  dream  the  exact  cause  of  the 
trouble.  And  here  is  where  the  shallow  psycho- 
analyst, like  the  dogmatic,  dictatorial  parent  tell- 
ing the  child  categorically  what  he  must  do  and 
laying  a  load  of  injunctions  upon  him,  makes  the 
mistake  of  telling  the  patient  at  the  first  inter- 
view the  whole  story  of  his  neurosis,  and  of  not 
letting  him  work  it  out  for  himself.  The  aca- 
demic information,  whether  in  technical  or  plain 
words,  makes  no  impression,  because  the  intellect 
does  not  directly  govern  the  unconscious.  Con- 
scious intellectual  control  of  the  archaic  primor- 
dial urge  within  us  there  must  be,  but  we  can  get 
it  only  indirectly  through  the  emotions,  for  the 
emotions  govern  the  unconscious.  It  expresses 
itself  through  and  in  emotions,  it  is  accessible  by 
the  way  of  the  emotions.  Therefore,  there  must 
be  an  emotional  reaction  felt  by  the  patient  before 
he  can  feel  a  conscious  wish  strong  enough  to 
supplant  the  unconscious  wish.  He  cannot  sim- 
ply be  told  to  have  an  emotional  reaction  any 
more  than  the  child  really  feels  ashamed  when 
an  indulgent  parent  tells  him  he   ought,  to  be 

55 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

ashamed  for  what  he  has  done.  Very  often,  if 
not  always,  the  feeling  aroused  by  such  language 
on  the  part  of  a  parent  to  a  child  is  merely  an 
imitation  of  the  indignation  which  the  parent 
feels  (or  feigns)  and  not  the  emotion  of  repent- 
ance verbally  demanded. 

The  slow  realization  on  the  part  of  the  patient 
is  necessary  because  the  development  of  charac- 
ter aimed  at  in  psychoanalysis  is  a  natural 
growth,  and  not  an  instantaneous  change  made  by 
the  ** presto''  of  a  magician.  Just  as  the  limbs 
of  a  child  grow  larger  by  infinitesimal  increments 
of  single  cells,  so  must  the  character  be  formed 
by  allying  one  act  after  another  with  the  creative 
emotions.  The  symbolism  of  the  dream  shows 
us  the  means  of  doing  this.  From  interpreting 
the  dream  one  comes  to  interpreting  the  waking 
life  in  the  same  way.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
waking  life  is  a  dream,  but  that  the  dream  is 
really  an  integral  part  of  waking  life,  just  as  the 
flower  is  an  integral  part  of  the  plant.  And  just 
as  the  flower  can  be  that  particular  *^  flower  in 
the  crannied  wall"  and  no  other  one  or  no  other 
kind  of  flower,  simply  because  it  is  the  fullest  ex- 
pression of  the  life  force  of  that  plant  and  that 
particular  kind  of  plant,  so  the  dream  is  but  a 
petal  of  a  flower  of  the  unconscious.  And  just 
as  the  flower  bears  in  its  corolla,  sometimes  hid- 
den from  view,  the  male  and  female  elements  of 
its  reproductive  system,  so  does  the  dream  con- 

56 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

tain,  but  generally  hidden,  the  fructifying  ele- 
ments of  our  mental  life.  As  there  are  some 
kinds  of  flowers  which  require  the  services  of  the 
bee  to  cause  a  cross  fertilization  and  as  the  shape 
of  those  flowers  is  determined  by  the  anatomy  of 
the  bee,  and  its  colours  designed  to  attract  the  bee 
from  afar,  so  does  the  soul  of  certain  types  of  peo- 
ple require  the  directive  influence  of  another  soul 
in  order  most  fruitfully  to  liberate  the  powers  of 
that  certain  type  of  personality  and  bring  them 
to  fullest  development  and  richest  fecundity. 

It  is  not  mere  fancy  that  I  compare  the  soul  of 
a  neurotic  child  to  a  brilliant  flower.  Neurotics 
are  in  one  sense  a  higher  type  of  evolution  than 
the  self-sufficient  street  Arab,  just  as  wind-ferti- 
lized plants  are  of  lower  order  than  those  which 
employ  co-operation  of  other  organisms. 

The  vital  point  of  it  all,  and  the  thesis  of  this 
chapter  in  particular,  is  that  the  ultimate  truths 
of  the  soul  cannot  be  expressed  literally,  but  re- 
quire symoblism  to  represent  them  as  adequately 
as  they  can  be  pictured  or  intoned  in  human 
thought.  A  purely  scientific  account  of  any  nat- 
ural phenomenon  describes  it  literally  as  far  as 
it  is  possible  to  find  literal  language  for  external 
phenomena.  *  ^  Dirt  is  matter  in  the  wrong  place. ' ' 
Where  science  cannot  find  such  language,  it  in- 
vents arbitrary  symbols  such  as  CO2,  H2O,  H2SO4, 
etc.  Human  thinking  not  rigidly  directed  by 
formulae,  though  I  admit  the  directed  form  has 

57 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

its  proper  place,  represents  anything  (that  must 
be  represented)  necessarily  through  the  medium 
of  parables,  fables,  similes,  allegories,  myths, 
metaphors.  This  is  due  to  the  mind's  inevitably 
identifying  itself  in  infancy  with  the  world.  This 
mfantile  mode  of  thought  persists  in  varying  ex- 
tent throughout  the  whole  of  many  persons '  later 
lives.  In  fairy  stories  we  have  the  elaborate  de- 
velopment which  an  adult  mind,  with  adult  expe- 
rience and  passion  and  desire,  produces  through 
the  medium  of  very  unscientific  metaphorical 
language.  The  child  and  the  unconscious  in  the 
adult  have  the  same  figurative  mode  of  expres- 
sion, but  without  the  artistic  elaboration. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  symbolic 
thoughts  of  the  dreams  of  night  or  day  or  the 
symbolic  acts  of  everyday  life  have  more  than  a 
very  general  loose  correspondence  between  dif- 
ferent individuals.  It  is  not  a  case  of  interpreta- 
tion of  dreams  and  acts  such  as  the  old-fashioned 
dream  books  give  us,  or  like  the  wholly  artificial 
*' language  of  flowers,"  or  ' ^landkerchief  flirta- 
tion,'' the  first  of  which  is  partly,  and  the  last  is 
wholly,  an  arbitrary  and  artificial  code.  The  un- 
derstanding of  a  dream  is  impossible  without 
some  of  the  *'free  associations"  of  the  dreamer, 
and  if  the  same  dream  pictures  were  presented 
for  analysis  by  two  or  more  persons,  they  might 
mean  utterly  different  things  for  the  several 
dreamers.       **  Water,"     for     instance,     might 

68 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

life''  in  one  person's  dream  and  ''death" 
in  another's,  according  to  the  relation  of  that  idea 
to  other  ideas  occurring  to  the  dreamer's  mind  in 
connection  with  the  water. 


SYMBOLISM  PRESERVES   SLEEP 

A  common  misapprehension  ahout  dreams  is 
expressed  in  the  phrase  '^  sleep  troubled  by  bad 
dreams"  which  seems  to  imply  that  the  dream  is 
a  disturber  of  sleep.  On  the  contrary,  the  sym- 
bolism of  the  dream  is  the  preserver  and  main- 
tainer  of  sleep  in  that  it,  the  dream,  may  repre- 
sent in  grotesque  and  apparently  irrelevant  pic- 
tures a  desire  which,  if  it  were  shown  in  its  true 
form,  would  immediately  awaken  the  sleeper  and 
fill  him  with  shame  and  remorse,  which  might 
keep  him  awake  for  the  rest  of  the  night.  So 
the  dream  generally  completely  disguises  the  un- 
conscious wishes,  and  the  ideas  as  they  appear 
in  consciousness  are  harmless  enough  to  be  tol- 
erated and  told  with  a  smile  next  morning  at 
breakfast. 

This  does  not  mean  to  say,  however,  that  the 
unconscious  wishes  should  remain  unknown  to  the 
dreamer,  particularly  if,  as  in  the  case  of  a  nerv- 
ous person,  there  is  some  element  in  his  life  which 
is  preventing  him  from  living  it  fully  and  joy- 
ously. In  such  a  case  the  dream  should  have,  as 
should  the  neurosis,  the  fullest  study.    It  should 

59 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

be  remembered,  too,  that  no  one  can  successfully 
do  that  for  himself,  not  even  the  most  trained 
psychoanalyst,  because  the  viewpoint  of  the 
mirror  held  up  by  the  other  person  is  absolutely 
essential. 

MANIFEST   vs.   LATENT 

Psychoanalysis  is  the  scientific  special  investi- 
gation of  symbolic  thought  and  action,  or  the 
study  of  all  mental  manifestations  as  symbolic. 
It  is  necessary  to  look  beneath  the  surface  to  dis- 
cover in  the  unconscious  the  original  thoughts  of 
which  our  conscious  manifestations  are  but  a  rep- 
resentation or  reshaping  of  the  thing  it  stands 
for.  In  this  sense  nothing  is  what  it  appears  to 
be.  Not  only  is  the  manifest  content  of  the  dream 
a  disguise  of  the  real  unconscious  desire  actuating 
the  dream,  but  the  actualities  of  every  kind  with 
which  we  are  surrounded  are,  with  few  exceptions, 
disguises  of  the  vital  tendencies  of  our  most  red- 
blooded  human  life.  The  disguise  is  most  gro- 
tesque in  the  night  dream.  Lying  as  he  was  in  a 
cot  in  a  hospital  ward,  what  apparent  interest  had 
the  patient  in  a  cow  in  an  old  orchard?  What 
impression  does  any  one  get  from  his  unstudied 
dreams  except  that  of  the  most  unaccountable 
bizarrerie?  But  the  thoughts  connected  with  the 
dream  show  the  dream's  intimate  afliliation  with 
our  everyday  life;  and  the  acts  of  our  everyday 
life,  when  unity  is  sought  for  in  them,  fail  as 

60 


SYMBOLIC  THOUGHT 

signally  as  does  the  unanalyzed  dream,  to  show 
any  unity  or  any  definite  purpose.  Therefore 
many  adults  and  most  children  need  the  clear-eyed 
view  of  their  lives  as  a  manifestation  of  a  larger 
life.  Psychoanalysis  can  help  them  calmly  to  see 
things  as  they  are  and  act  accordingly  and  to 
secure  the  reaction  of  the  most  wholesomely 
creative  emotions  which  make  for  health  and 
strength  developed  to  the  utmost. 


61 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

As  a  test  of  growth,  of  the  successful  attainment 
of  adulthood,  we  may  take  the  fact  that  the  child 
thinks  only  of  himself,  of  what  he  likes  and  needs 
to  satisfy  his  cravings  for  self-preservation  in 
order  that  he  may  grow  so  as  later  to  contribute 
to  the  race.  He  may  be  called  selfish  in  the  com- 
mon acceptance  of  the  term,  but  he  is  necessarily 
so,  and  usually  finds  much  difficulty  in  repressing 
that  variety  of  selfishness,  for  it  is  really  his  own 
self-protection.  Nature  demands  that  the  young 
receive  solicitous  care,  food  and  protection,  in 
order  to  bring  them  to  full  growth  for  creative 
purposes.  The  higher  the  form  of  life  the  more 
protection  does  nature  give  her  young.  In  ani- 
mals the  young  are  cared  for  through  the  time  of 
helplessness  and  then  weaned  to  independence. 
As  the  instincts  of  the  child  for  self-preservation 
are  used  to  promote  his  growth,  so  the  adult's  in- 
stincts, when  he  falls  in  love,  studies  a  profession, 
becomes  a  scientist,  or  follows  the  call  of  art,  lit- 
erature or  commercial  life,  or  in  some  other  way 
helps  on  the  progress  of  the  race,  are  for  race 
preservation.  But  if  the  environment  of  the  child 
is  full  of  obstacles  from  unreasonable  discipline, 

62 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

viz.  from  too  much  indulgence,  from  examples  of 
companions  who  are  too  much  indulged,  from  too 
early  development,  from  quarrelling  parents  or 
unhappy  home  life — then  the  repressed  wishes  in 
the  unconscious  become  more  difficult  to  keep  out 
of  consciousness  and  there  begins  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  repressed  wishes  pulling  in  one  direc- 
tion and  the  parental  wishes  pulling  the  child  in 
another.  What  happens  depends  upon  the  poten- 
tial with  which  the  child  was  born,  or  if  I  may 
coin  a  phrase,  upon  the  strength  of  the  ''psychic 
muscle''  of  the  infantile  life  struggling  to  grow 
away  from  the  child  to  maturity. 

If  the  child  has  a  powerful  make-up,  he  will 
resist  the  environment,  break  away  from  it,  be- 
come a  runaway,  lawless,  incorrigible,  perhaps  a 
criminal.  If  he  has  sprung  from  neurotic  soil  he 
may  be  too  weak  to  break  away  and  escape.  The 
discouraged  libido  will  then  sink  down  in  the  in- 
dividual, and  there  is  often  a  severe  physical  ill- 
ness. The  body  in  such  cases  becomes  an  easy 
prey  for  disease  germs,  while  the  mind  seeks  a 
world  of  phantasy  to  dwell  in,  which  is  pleas- 
anter  than  reality,  or,  veiled  in  symbolism,  con- 
tinues the  conflict,  hidden  from  conscious  thought. 

UNCONSCIOUS  PKOBLEMS 

The  child  whose  mind  is  occupied  with  uncon- 
scious problems  has  no  power  of  concentration,  is 

63 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

dreamy,  abstracted  and  often  tearful.  Discipline 
or  punishment  has  no  effect.  He  remains  absent- 
minded  and  will  say  he  is  not  thinking  of  any- 
thing. In  the  face  of  these  circumstances  we 
should  remember  that  he  does  not  know  his  uncon- 
scious wishes  and  problems.  It  is  for  us,  the  psy- 
choanalysts, to  analyze  his  unconscious  and 
show  him  what  is  interfering  with  his  conscious 
efforts,  and  then  we  help  him  free  his  libido  and 
provide  an  outlet  for  it.  In  the  analysis  of  an 
adult  we  must  also  show  him  the  unconscious 
problem  and  wish,  but  he  must  free  his  own  libido 
and  provide  an  outlet  for  it,  for  the  adult  can 
more  or  less  control  his  environment.  The  child 
cannot  do  so  and  must  be  removed  from  it. 

Dr.  Jung  of  Zurich  conceives  the  libido  as 
analogous  to  energy,  as  understood  in  the  physi- 
cal sciences,  and  accepts  for  mental  phenomena 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  namely,  that  the  total  energy  of  the  uni- 
verse is  constant.  In  the  processes  of  nature  no 
energy  is  created  or  destroyed.  Increase  or  de- 
crease of  energy  in  one  form  corresponds  respec- 
tively to  a  decrease  or  increase  in  some  other  form 
or  forms.  In  the  conception  of  the  Ziirich  school 
the  libido  or  urge  of  life  is  constant.^    If  it  is  not 

,  1  Physical  energy  is  either  static  or  dynamic,  and  physical 
science  has  shown  that  it  is  the  constant  tendency  of  all  the 
dynamic  energy  in  the  world  to  become  static.  Thus  the  dynamic 
energy  of  the  sun  collected  by  the  leaves  of  trees  a  million  years 
ago  is  released  in  the  coal  which  we  burn  in  our  furnaces.  But 
it  requires  the  expenditure  of  a  large  amount  of  dynamic  energy 

64 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

being  used  in  constructive  work,  it  is  a  destruc- 
tive force,  and  has  the  moral  effect  of  sending  the 
individual  backward  rather  than  forward  on  the 
highway  of  life.  The  individual  is  not  aware  of 
going  backward.  He  may  be  in  good  physical 
health,  but  if  there  is  a  loss  of  libido  in  the  con- 
scious sphere,  there  is  an  increase  in  the  uncon- 
scious mental  activity.  Again,  the  correlations  of 
the  libido  are  like  those  of  energy  in  physics. 
That  is,  the  transformation  of  one  kind  of  energy 
^into  another  is  called  in  the  terminology  of  psy- 
choanalysis the  sublimation  of  the  libido,  and 
operates  as  the  steam  engine,  transforming  the  po- 
tential chemical  energy  of  the  coal  or  wood  and  of 
the  oxygen  of  the  air  into  mechanical  energy. 
In  the  sublimation  of  the  libido  we  transform  the 
creative  energy  into  science,  art,  literature,  com- 
merce, etc.  But  however  much  transformed,  life, 
time  and  the  libido,  are  constant,  are  ever  mov- 
ing on. 

In  forbidding  athletics,  games,  dancing,  learn- 
ing to  play  on  musical  instruments,  or  in  placing 
prohibitions  on  the  many  lines  of  activity  of  child- 

of  mankind  to  transform  in  mining,  transportation  and  stoking 
the  static  energy  of  coal  into  the  dynamic  energy  of  steam.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  would  seem  as  if  in  human  and  animal  life 
there  was  an  unending  fund  of  dynamic  energy,  as  if  evolution 
had  been  designed  for  the  purpose  of  energizing  the  inert,  in- 
organic matter  of  the  universe.  Therefore  the  human  mind  rep- 
resents the  latest  step  in  evolution  toward  the  formation  of  an 
organism  for  collecting,  transforming,  preserving  and  again 
liberating  energy.  The  libido  is  the  human  expression  of  this 
continuous  dynamic  energy. 

65 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

hood,  not  infrequently  parents  unknowingly  ar- 
rest the  libido  of  their  children.  It  is  a  serious 
offence  against  the  laws  of  life.  We  often  hear  it 
said :  ^  *  We  shall  keep  that  child  young,  we  are  in 
no  hurry  for  him  to  grow  up.  We  are  not  anxious 
for  high  marks  in  school,  we  want  him  to  get 
well.^'  Growth  and  improvement  must  work  to- 
gether, or  we  cannot  preserve  youth;  but  if  we 
try  to  keep  the  child  from  growing  we  make  him 
ill,  because  we  are  acting  no  more  intelli- 
gently than  the  children  who  stunted  a  kitten's 
growth  by  trying  to  '^cure"  it  with  doses  of 
whisky. 

CHILD   MUST   BE  ACTIVE 

When  we  reprove  a  child  for  being  noisy  or 
restless,  we  are  reproving  him  for  being  a  child, 
and  are  doing  our  best  to  stunt  his  growth.  Could 
anything  be  more  stupid?  We  cannot  allow  him 
to  shout  and  jump  in  the  drawing-room,  but  we 
should  provide  a  place  and  time  for  him  to  do  so. 
We  are  all  transformers,  turning  air,  food  and 
sunlight  into  energy.  The  great  creative  force  of 
life  is  the  sun,  which  frees  energy  as  electricity 
is  freed.  We  should  send  the  child  out  into  the 
sunlight  and  under  the  blue  skies,  either  literally 
or  figuratively.  We  speak  of  a  sunny  disposition 
as  a  great  personal  charm.  How  stupid  we  are  if 
we  do  not  realize  that  a  child  needs  sunlight  with- 

66 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

in  as  well  as  without  the  house.  The  opening  out 
of  a  new  leaf  in  the  spring  is  no  more  inevitable 
than  is  the  response  of  the  child  to  the  sunny  dis- 
position. The  bud  with  its  sap  constitutes  a  con- 
dition in  which  the  warmth  of  the  sun  cannot  fail 
to  produce  the  expansion  into  a  glossy  green  leaf. 
Quite  as  inevitable  as  the  effect  of  the  sunny  at- 
mosphere upon  either  child  or  leaf  is  that  of  the 
cold,  gloomy  atmosphere  which  is  sometimes 
spread  by  certain  people.  A  nervous  invalid  tell- 
ing of  her  aches  and  pains  brings  clouds  into  a 
home.  An  irritable  father,  however  real  may  be 
the  cause  of  his  feelings,  has  no  right  to  disturb 
the  home  atmosphere.  The  skeleton  in  the  family 
closet,  hidden  because  of  pride,  must  be  destroyed, 
and  the  door  left  wide  open.  The  financial  prob- 
lem of  living  beyond  the  income,  and  the  mal- 
adjustment of  the  nouveau  riche  are  both  equally 
destructive.  The  former  brings  heavy  clouds  of 
misery  and  despair;  the  latter  is  as  the  burning 
tropical  sun,  drying  out  the  freshness  £^nd  frag- 
rance of  youth. 

GUIDING  THE  LIBIDO 

In  the  terms  of  the  Swiss  school  we  must,  with 
sufficient  discipline,  *  *  guide  the  libido '  *  of  the 
child  through  an  environment  such  that  it  keeps 
the  understanding  evenly  balanced.  Telling  the 
truth  in  answering  all  questions  is  the  only  way 

67 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

to  keep  the  confidence  of  our  children,  and  if  we 
are  too  prudish  to  overcome  our  resistances  to  the 
vital  truths,  for  which  the  childish  mind  is  ever 
searching,  we  should  know  that  our  children  will 
regard  us  with  suspicion.  This  does  not  contra- 
dict what  was  said  above  about  the  child's  learn- 
ing too  much,  or  being  too  emotional,  for  it  has 
been  found  that  the  refusal  to  answer  a  child's 
questions  is  much  more  exciting  to  him  than  a 
ready  and  cheerful  answer.  A  lying  answer 
arouses  strong  destructive  emotions  in  the  child. 
A  lying  parent  is  like  a  corrupt  contractor  who 
uses  mud  instead  of  mortar  in  building  a  brick 
wall.  At  some  critical  time  the  wall  collapses,  but 
the  contractor  has  fled  to  another  country.  The 
child  never  is  harmed  by  simple  and  frank  an- 
swers which  it  can  understand.  Only  when  the 
answer  contains  more  than  the  child  can  assimi- 
late does  it  contain  the  wrong  ingredient  (mud). 
In  fact  everything  that  is  not  assimilated  is  mud 
in  the  structure  of  the  mind,  just  as  the  unas- 
similable  matter  taken  into  the  stomach  is  re- 
jected. To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure.  If  our 
own  ideals  have  been  true,  if  our  minds  have  not 
been  perverted  when  we  have  glimpsed  life  at  its 
source,  we  can  present  its  mysteries  to  our 
children  as  spiritual  truths,  and  teach  them 
that  all  conception  and  birth  are  beautiful, 
whether  it  is  the  unfolding  of  a  rosebud  or  a 
chUd. 

68 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

THE  FAMILY   SKELETON 

An  illustration  of  the  bad  effect  on  the  child  of 
a  family  skeleton's  concealment  by  the  parent  is 
seen  in  the  case  of  a  girl  whose  father  was  a 
drunkard.  This  fact  was  kept  from  the  child  as 
long  as  possible,  with  the  result  that  when  finally 
she  came  to  know  it,  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years, 
she  took  it  as  an  insoluble  problem,  because  it  had 
been  kept  secret  from  her,  and  was  therefore  re- 
pressed. When  in  later  life  she  came  upon  the 
problems  connected  with  becoming  a  mother  her- 
self, she  was  not  able  to  devote  her  entire  energy 
to  the  solution  of  those  problems,  because  a  part 
of  her  energy  was  absorbed  still  in  pondering, 
whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  on  the 
drunkenness  of  her  father.  In  her  unconscious 
thoughts  of  the  dream  world  she  saw  a  man 
struggling  up  a  hill,  sometimes  slipping*,  stum- 
bling, and  as  lie  neared  the  top  something  would 
hit  him,  knock  him  down.  He  would  fall,  roll 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  hill  and  lie  there  as 
though  stunned  and  looking  like  a  drunken  man 
asleep  in  the  gutter.  He  would  gradually  awaken 
and  start  again,  sometimes  pulling  himself  up  by 
tiny  twigs,  which  strangely  seemed  to  'bear  his 
weight,  but  again  something  would  send  him  fall- 
ing down  to  the  depths. 

Her  father  was  the  man  in  the  dream,  strug- 
gling to  rise  in  life ;  the  reproaches  of  her  domi- 

69 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

neering  mother  sent  him  down  again.  His  love 
for  the  patient  was  symbolized  as  the  tiny  twigs 
which  pulled  him  up.  Again  and  again  she 
queried :  Why  could  not  her  father  overcome  the 
force  which  knocked  him  down?  I  hope  w^hen  the 
reader  finishes  reading  this  book  he  will  under- 
stand the  answer  to  the  question. 

Her  father's  morbid  condition  should  have  been 
no  problem  to  her,  and  it  would  not  have  been,  had 
it  not  been  invested  with  so  much  emotional  value 
on  account  of  the  long  secrecy  and  the  subsequent 
sudden  revelation.  She  should  have  been  told  of 
it  in  a  perfectly  matter-of-fact  way,  and  then  she 
would  not  have  wondered,  when  she  became  a 
mother,  why  her  father  was  a  drunkard.  In  won- 
dering why  her  father  had  so  disgraced  the  family 
she  expended  too  much  energy  to  be  able  to  give 
enough  to  her  own  personal  problems  when  she 
herself  became  a  mother. 


UNASSIMILATED  THOUGHT 

How  can  we  tell  whether  the  child's  mind  con- 
tains any  or  little  or  much  unassimilated  or  re- 
pressed matter!  This  is  a  very  important  ques- 
tion, for  on  our  ability  to  give  it  a  scientifically 
correct  answer  depends  our  knowledge  of  whether 
we  are  doing  our  best  for  our  children  or  not.  Of 
course  it  goes  without  saying  that  if  we  do  not 
make  a  scientific   study  of  the   child's  omental 

70 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

processes,  we  are  not  doing  as  much  for  him  as 
we  should  do  if  we  were  all  able  to  examine  him 
by  the  methods  of  the  expert  in  the  most  modern 
form  of  psychology.  This  degree  of  care  is  not 
possible  for  parents  in  general.  While  they  can- 
not be  expected  to  go  into  intensive  child  rearing 
with  the  same  business-like  devotion  to  systematic 
methods  as  that  of  the  breeders  of  animals  (even 
guinea  pigs  destined  for  vivisection  receive  more 
intelligent  care  than  the  majority  of  children!), 
they  could  yet,  with  a  little  more  knowledge,  avoid 
certain  errors  in  bringing  up  their  children.  They 
could  also  do  some  things  which  would  not  natu- 
rally occur  to  them  to  do  without  suggestions  re- 
ceived from  scientific  sources. 

And  then  again  we  either  do  not  welcome  our 
children  but  feel  the  additional  care  as  too  heavy 
a  burden,  or  we  too  eagerly  await  the  arrival  of 
our  first  child  and  plan  to  make  him  a  model. 
How,  then,  can  a  child  be  free  to  grow  as  nature 
has  intended,  if  we  are  making  of  him  either  a 
burden  or  a  plaything  for  us  to  exhibit!  The  child 
needs  guidance  from  the  hour  of  birth  but  not  re- 
straint or  repression.  He  needs  all  his  energy  for 
his  play  which  is  a  preparation  for  earning  his 
livelihood.  But  while  the  child's  libido  is  being 
guided  and  trained  into  strong  growth,  it  must  be 
free.  The  child  must  feel  free  and  yet  have  re- 
spect for  authority  which  leads  to  obedience. 
From  force  of  habit  we  impose  many  unnecessary 

71 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

'^don'ts"  upon  cMldren.  The  old  story  of 
**Mary,  go  and  see  what  the  children  are  doing, 
and  tell  them  to  stop''  shows  our  selfishness  and 
ignorance.  We  misinterpret  the  many  phases  of 
growth  which  the  child  must  live  through,  if  we 
think  the  desire  for  toys,  printing  presses,  stamp 
collecting  Indian  belongings,  circus  doings,  tin 
soldiers,  railroads,  electrical  devices  (the  last 
named  coming  at  puberty  just  before  the  first  love 
affair)  are  all  extravagances  which  should  be 
refused. 

CALF  LOVE 

The  manifestation  of  puberty  which  evokes  the 
most  perverse  behaviour  on  the  part  of  the  parent 
is  the  child's  first  love  affair.  Rarely  do  the  par- 
ents, if  they  show  any  reactions  at  all,  show  the 
one  most  helpful  to  the  child.  The  first  love  affair 
of  the  boy  usually  fills  the  mother  with  alarm. 
Her  unconscious  then  gets  the  best  of  her.  She 
feels  that  she  has  lost  her  boy.  At  the  age  of 
puberty  she  has  literally  and  physically  lost  her 
hoy,  as  he  has  become  physically  a  man.  She 
should  not,  but  she  usually  does,  wish  to  keep  him 
a  boy  physically.  The  young  man  should  then  be 
her  son,  rather  than  her  boy,  in  both  the  mental 
and  the  physical  spheres.  Parents  should  wel- 
come with  great  relief  the  appearance  of  the  first 
love  affair.  Although  they  may  still  need  guid- 
ance in  this  first  love  affair  it  means  30  much,  as 

72 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

it  is  the  beginning  of  the  self-rehance  and  respon- 
sibility of  the  man  with  his  hopes  and  ambitions. 
The  boy  or  girl  should  at  that  age  receive  as  little 
advice  and  admonition  as  possible,  beyond  the 
necessity  of  continuing  whatever  line  of  work, 
whether  in  school  or  business,  in  which  he  is  en- 
gaged. The  first  love  affair  should  come  at  about 
the  age  of  fifteen,  and  is  a  delicate  subject  be- 
Ween  parent  and  child,  as  those  deep,  vital  emo- 
tions are  too  sacred  and  wonderful  to  youth  to  be 
lightly  mentioned.  Parents  should  never  ridicule 
the  first  love  affair,  nor  yet  encourage  it.  When 
the  twelve  to  fifteen  year  old  son  calls  his  mother 
into  his  darkened  room  after  he  has  retired  and 
says :  * '  Oh,  mother,  I  cannot  go  to  sleep.  I  keep 
thinking  of  Elsie  all  the  time,''  she  should  not  be 
shocked  or  dismayed.  She  should  encourage  him 
to  talk  about  Elsie,  not  for  the  purpose  of  increas- 
ing his  affection  for  her,  although  most  mothers 
mistakenly  believe  that  will  be  the  result,  but  to 
open  a  safety  valve. 

The  more  he  talks  about  Elsie  the  less  deeply 
will  he  feel.  He  will,  on  the  contrary,  be  ready 
to  pass  his  **calf  love"  on  to  the  next  girl  who 
smiles  at  him.  While  the  mother  is  inevitably 
though  unexpectedly  pained  at  the  son's  love  af- 
fairs, she  will  later  be  surprised,  if  she  has  with- 
held opposition,  and  has  been  patient  in  listen- 
ing to  the  praise  of  Elsie,  to  hear  him  say: 
**  Mother,  I  have  loved  you  so  much  better  since  I 

73 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

have  loved  Elsie.  I  used  to  think  you  didn  't  love 
me  any,  because  you  wouldn't  let  me  do  things, 
and  always  made  me  do  things  I  didn't  want  to 
do.  But  I  know  you  had  to  do  that,  because  the 
things  you  made  me  do  are  just  the  things  Elsie 
likes  to  have  me  do."  And  so  the  son  returns  to 
the  mother  with  a  different  kind  of  love.  She  is 
not  the  only  ideal  woman,  but  she  is  the  ideal 
mother,  and  her  son  will  give  her  a  more  sympa- 
thetic love.  What  is  more  it  will  be  strong  and 
protecting.  He  will  even  feel  reproachful  that  he 
has  been  such  a  trouble  to  her.  Later  on,  if  she 
has  been  the  right  kind  of  mother,  he  will  under- 
stand and  appreciate  her  self-sacrifice  for  him. 
Not  every  mother  is  the  right  kind.  She  is  some- 
times too  infantile,  or  what  is  commonly  called 
selfish,  to  devote  her  energies  to  her  children. 
Then,  too,  she  may  be  potentially  the  right  kind, 
but,  if  money  is  scarce,  she  makes  the  grave  mis- 
take at  the  earliest  possible  age  of  requiring  her 
children  to  work  and  support  her,  instead  of  sup- 
porting herself. 

A  father's  feeling  upon  learning  of  his  daugh- 
ter's first  love  affair  is  often  that  of  resentment 
and  anger.  He  would  hke  to  forbid  the  presence 
of  any  young  man  in  his  house.  If  he  has  sown 
some  wild  oats  himself,  he  condemns  young  men 
in  general  as  scamps  and  rascals.  Fortunate,  in- 
deed, is  the  girl  who  can  go  freely  to  her  father 
and  say:  *^0h,  father.  Jack  cares  for  me  and  I 

74 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

am  so  happy!  Isn't  he  good-looking!  He  is  just 
wonderf ul ! ' '  If  there  is  no  opposition,  the  first 
love  affair  is  usually  outgrown  in  a  few  months ; 
and  it  should  be,  as  rarely  do  adolescents  grow 
and  develop  in  unison.  Early  love  affairs 
do  not  make  happy  marriages,  and  so  wise 
parents  change  the  environment  with  school 
or  visits,  to  broaden  the  experience  of  their 
children. 


WORK   AND  PLAY 

One  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  which  often  con- 
fronts parents  in  directing  childhood  into  adult 
life  is  to  assist  the  child  to  separate  work  and 
play,  to  arouse  a  desire  to  work  and  to  do  some- 
thing for  others,  even  though  it  involves  a  sacri- 
fice. As  we  see  in  the  Swiss  conception  of  psycho- 
analysis, the  child's  libido  must  be  free  to  be  put 
into  his  daily  environment.  Whatever  the  day's 
work  may  be,  all  the  interest  and  energy  of  the 
individual,  if  his  libido  is  free,  will  be  put  into  it, 
with  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  within  himself.  The 
pinch  of  necessity  and  fear  of  breaking  conven- 
tional laws  are  the  only  forces  that  compel  many 
an  adult  to  work,  but  any  adult  working  under 
this  compulsion  has  strong  infantile  reactions  to 
his  environment.  The  adult  who  has  *^  crossed 
the  bridge ' '  from  childhood  to  maturity  works  be- 
cause he  feels  better  for  it,  because  there  is  always 

75 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

a  force  pushing  him  on,  because  he  gets  satisfac- 
tion out  of  the  work  itself.  He  does  not  complain 
of  difficulties,  but  just  ** naturally'*  works,  be- 
cause he  is  a  man  obeying  nature's  creative  im- 
pulse, whether  following  the  simple  existence  of 
a  day  labourer  or  the  more  complicated  life  of  a 
master  employer. 

A  man  can  work  with  creative  satisfaction  only 
when  his  needs  of  development  have  been  fulfilled. 
As  the  child  is  blindly  groping  for  the  satisfaction 
of  his  needs,  he  cannot  work  or  play  with  the  same 
steady  purpose  as  the  adult.  Attention  in  a  child 
is  very  short-lived.  Prolonged  concentration 
upon  a  single  object  is  impossible.  He  may  oc- 
cupy himself  a  while  with  toys  that  he  can  move 
about  and  manipulate,  and  then  his  attention  is 
claimed  by  other  practical  activities.  He  is  inter- 
ested in  what  he  can  do  by  way  of  actual  move- 
ment, but  he  has  looked  at  a  thing,  or  listened, 
long  enough  as  soon  as  he  finds  that  it  leads  to 
nothing  else.  The  chances  are  that  the  reason  a 
child  does  not  follow  a  parent's  admonitions  is 
because  the  parents  are  expecting  too  much  under- 
standing from  the  child  and  have  therefore  re- 
quired of  him  the  impossible. 

This  also  holds  good  of  a  child  in  school,  his 
impulses  being  mainly  toward  movement  and  do- 
ing, not  toward  thinking  and  knowing.  He  will 
watch  and  listen,  now  longer  than  he  did  a  year 
ago,  but  chiefly  because  his  practical  interests  are 

76 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

wider,  and  more  of  the  objects  around  Mm  afford 
openings  for  action.  He  is  still  impatient  of  mere 
thinking.  He  has  a  body  which  requires  constant 
exercise,  and  it  is  absurd  to  expect  a  child  to 
remain  long  sitting  in  one  position  or  standing  in 
one  position  and  unwise  to  force  him  to  do  so. 
Sensible  instructors  recognize  these  facts  and  ar- 
range for  change  and  recreation  in  the  school,  but 
at  home  the  parents  are  too  prone  to  blame  a  child 
for  wilful  disobedience,  which  isn't  wilful  at  all. 
The  child's  attention  must  at  first  move  with  his 
natural  cravings  and  instinctive  activities  (his 
libido).  The  parents'  difficult  task  is  to  recog- 
nize this  limitation  and  to  realize  how  much  less 
their  words  mean  to  the  child  than  to  themselves, 
not  from  the  child's  lack  of  respect  for  the 
parents,  but  from  his  being  too  inexperienced  to 
be  able  to  comprehend  and  grasp  their  meaning. 
One  has  to  make  the  appeal  to  voluntary  atten- 
tion, and  this  appeal  has  to  be  made  for  some  time 
in  order  to  make  the  child  learn  things  that  seem 
dull,  although  the  discipline  of  learning  them  will 
be  beneficial.  He  will  later  on  learn  that  knowl- 
edge is  invaluable,  as  for  instance  the  multiplica- 
tion table,  when  he  begins  to  work  at  payment  for 
labour  by  the  hour.  No  child  enjoys  the  drudgery 
of  committing  the  tables  to  memory,  but  at  an 
early  age  he  should  begin  Ms  financial  career  by 
being  given  a  small  sum  of  money  for  simple  ac- 
tivities, and  later  he  will  be  very  glad  to  use  Ms 

77 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

arithmetic  in  multiplying  Ms  number  of  hours 
by  the  rate  per  hour. 


UNSOLVED   CHILDISH  PEOBLEMS 

Some  of  the  problems  are  not  solved  in  child- 
hood, and  the  dissatisfaction  due  to  their  being 
unsolved  persists  into  and  complicates  matters  in 
later  life,  as  for  instance :  Why  mother  and  father 
should  go  to  Europe  and  have  a  good  time  and 
leave  the  son  behind,  or  why  he  cannot  have  an 
auto,  keep  late  hours  with  other  boys,  but  is  sent 
away  to  military  school  where  smoking  is  for- 
bidden and  there  is  very  strict  discipline,  while,  as 
a  contrast  to  his  fate,  other  boys  of  his  age  are 
** hitting  it  up''  at  home  and  enjoying  the  freedom 
which  he  would  himself  so  much  enjoy.  Another 
boy  had  an  exceedingly  strict  and  severe  father 
who,  for  a  slight  disobedience  of  his  orders,  de- 
prived the  son  of  a  very  great  pleasure.  He  was 
required  to  stay  at  home  while  all  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  family  went  to  see  a  big  parade.  The 
disproportion  of  this  punishment  would  appeal  to 
any  one,  but  to  the  boy  himself  it  was  a  crushing 
force  which  took  from  him  all  initiative.  Since 
his  own  will  was  overridden  on  every  occasion  by 
the  domineering  father,  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  all  efforts  on  his  part  were  useless,  and,  as  it 
appeared  on  the  outside,  he  never  made  any. 

But  the  truth  was  that  his  efforts  were  exclu- 
78 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

sively  mental  though  not  conscious,  for  in  his 
unconscious  he  was  continually  mulling  over  the 
question  why  his  f atlier  had  been  so  unreasonable 
in  his  treatment.  When  he  came  for  analysis  he 
had  forgotten  all  the  circumstances  and  knew  only 
the  mere  fact  that  he  had  no  initiative.  The  re- 
sult of  the  analysis  was  to  show  what  had  de- 
prived him  of  his  initiative  and  also  that  his 
father  was  not  so  strong  a  character.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  had  been,  as  many  domineering  persons 
are,  merely  compensating  with  an  exterior  im- 
periousness  for  an  essential  but  unconscious  sense 
of  inferiority.  This  should  suggest  to  all  parents 
the  possibility  that  when  they  feel  it  incumbent 
on  themselves  to  be  exceedingly  severe,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  they  too  are  overcompensating  in 
their  attitude  toward  the  child  for  their  own  un- 
conscious feeling  of  inferiority.  And  we  know 
that  the  more  unconscious  is  this  feeling,  the 
stronger  will  be  this  overcompensating  severity. 
We  cannot  be  extremely  severe  unless  the  reasons 
for  not  being  so  are  obscured  by  the  unconscious 
mental  activity.  Otherwise,  the  milder  and  more 
rational,  but  no  less  strong  attitude,  the  one  which 
will  have  the  greater  good  effect  on  the  child  ^s 
future,  will  naturally  come  to  the  surface  in  us. 
Even  a  conscious  feehng  that  we  are  too  indulgent 
with  the  child  will  sometimes  cause  us  to  compen- 
sate consciously  for  this  weakness ;  but  an  uncon- 
scious feeling  of  inferiority  is  generally  mani- 

79 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

fested  in  the  adult  in  a  conscious  desire  to  be 
absolute  master  over  the  child,  to  impress  his  will 
on  it  and  to  have  absolute  and  instant  obedience. 

In  this  self-deception,  which  most  parents  prac- 
tise upon  themselves,  the  psychoanalyst  finds  the 
cause  of  much  that  is  morbid  in  the  early-cowed 
indi\ddual's  later  life.  His  parents  have  treated 
him  according  to  the  particular  twist  which  they 
have  been  given  by  their  own  unconscious,  and  he 
sometimes  becomes  positive  and  assertive  because 
he  had  unassertive  parents  and  vice  versa.  It  is 
not  the  children  alone,  however,  who  feel  this  spe- 
cial trend  of  the  character  of  the  parents.  Other 
people  notice  it,  too,  but  are  less  affected  by  it  in 
proportion  to  their  own  experience  in  the  world. 
But  on  a  child  the  parents'  unjust  acts  (or  unwise, 
if  there  be  an  implication  of  blame  in  the  word 
unjust),  has  an  effect  which  is  all  the  greater  on 
account  of  the  helplessness  and  plasticity  of  the 
child's  nature. 

The  unjust  and  overbearing  parental  atmos- 
phere in  the  world  of  nervous  children  cannot  be 
cleared  because  the  parents  cannot  see  the  actual 
facts  of  the  case.  But  the  neurotics  who  have 
been  treated  by  psychoanalysis  show  that  a  large 
proportion  of  them  have  become  neurotics  because 
of  adverse  environment  in  childhood,  consisting 
of  a  parent  or  both  parents  who  did  not  under- 
stand the  effects  of  their  severity  or  over-indul- 
gence upon  their  children. 

80 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

FIXATION  OF   LIBIDO 

If  the  environment  of  the  child  (at  the  time 
when  reasoning  power  begins)  is  in  greatest  con- 
jflict  with  his  instincts,  then  the  libido  is  held  fast 
upon  problems  of  his  life,  which  should  not  remain 
unsolved  for  him.  A  failure  on  the  part  of  the 
parents  to  give  him  the  solutions  of  these  intimate 
problems  will  result  in  the  child's  facing  even 
greater  and  wholly  unnecessary  conflicts  in  later 
life.  This  mental  condition  of  the  adult,  where 
he  is  troubled  by  problems  which  should  have  been 
solved  for  him  in  his  childhood  by  his  parents 
(the  best  service  they  can  ever  do  him),  is  techni- 
cally called  a  *^ fixation''  of  the  libido.  In  such 
case  a  part  of  the  attention,  even  in  later  life,  is 
centred  (though  unconsciously)  upon  questions 
which  are  essentially  childish  ones,  and  cannot  be 
disengaged  from  them  to  be  wholly  devoted  to  the 
problems  which  are  essentially  adult  ones.  This 
is  the  true  cause  of  the  infantility  which  I  have 
mentioned  above  as  characterizing  many  club  men 
and  women  bridge  players. 

It  is  sometimes  a  very  difficult  matter  to  re- 
lieve this  fixation,  to  separate  the  libido  of  the 
adult  from  the  object  to  which,  on  account  of  per- 
fectly excusable  parental  ignorance,  it  has  in 
childhood  become  attached.  The  results  of  this 
fixation  are  most  serious,  because  not  the  entire 
libido  is  attached  to  its  infantile  object,  but  only 

81 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

a  part  of  it,  the  other  part  being  successfully  di- 
rected toward  the  appropriate  adult  object.  The 
result  is  a  ^^  splitting  of  the  libido, '*  but  the  por- 
tion of  the  energy,  affections,  etc.,  that  remains 
fixed  on  the  unhappy  problems  of  childhood  is  so 
^reat  that  the  remainder  of  the  libido  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  cover  the  educational,  social,  financial  and 
other  demands  of  the  adult's  everyday  life.  In 
the  childhood  of  such  a  person  the  ordinary  de- 
mands of  his  school  and  home  life  crowd  out  the 
thoughts  of  the  unsolved  problems. 

These  thoughts,  however,  are  not  annihilated. 
They  merely  disappear  from  the  surface,  and  sink 
into  the  unconscious  where  they  remain  repressed. 
Although  they  are  not  recognized  by  the  adult  as 
a  disturbance,  because  they  were  forgotten  some- 
time between  childhood  and  maturity,  they  are 
ever  pressing  the  mind  of  the  adult  in  order  that 
they  may  gain  relief  by  breaking  through  into 
conscious  life  and  thought.  They  seek  an  outlet 
through  emotions  in  laughter,  anger,  swearing, 
tears.  Laughter  is  a  great  opening  and  relief  to 
the  repressions.  The  adult,  therefore,  finds  him- 
self not  interested  in  his  surroundings,  but  absent- 
minded,  abstracted  and  gazing  into  space  with 
no  conscious  thoughts.  On  the  contrary,  the 
thoughts  which  would  have  been  conscious,  had 
they  not  been  repressed,  are  held  in  the  uncon- 
scious. Sometimes  there  occurs  in  the  conscious 
life  of  the  adult  the  blankest  apathy,  an  utter  f ail- 

82 


THE  CHILD  AND  THE  ADULT 

ure  of  family  affection,  because  all  the  affection  is 
held  in  the  unconscious  by  the  unhappy  incidents 
of  child-life  which  are  still  rankling  there,  irritat- 
ing, disturbing  and  poisoning  the  mind.  They  are 
like  a  wound  healed  over,  but  looking  red  and 
angry  on  the  surface,  and  with  unclean  conditions 
underneath. 

Psychoanalysis,  like  the  surgeon's  knife,  in 
opening  the  unclean  wound,  opens  the  mind,  dis- 
covers what  are  the  disturbing  thoughts  and  then 
helps  the  patient  to  remove  them.  In  a  child  such 
a  condition  as  the  splitting  of  the  libido  or  a  fixa- 
tion, can  usually  be  seen  on  the  surface  and  the 
cause  will  be  found  to  exist  in  the  child's  environ- 
ment. If  the  child  can  be  placed  in  a  new  home- 
life,  the  splitting  is  more  easily  healed,  but  each 
visit  to  the  former  environment  will  reopen  the 
split,  until  the  child  has  acquired  sufficient  age  and 
strength  of  character  to  withstand  the  shock  of 
meeting  the  obstacles  which  were  his  undoing.  In 
an  adult,  when  the  existing  cause  is  buried  deep 
under  many  years  of  experience  and  ethical  re- 
strictions, a  longer  time  for  analysis  of  the  sym- 
polic  thought  is  necessary. 


83 


CHAPTER  V 

MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE   CHILD 

The  child's  problems  are  not  confined  to  the  home 
life,  but  certain  forms  of  nervousness  manifest 
themselves  only  at  home.  The  school  life,  more 
especially  that  of  boarding-school  and  college,  af- 
fords a  great  relief  to  the  unconscious  struggles. 
I  have  often  heard  children  in  the  adolescent 
years  say  they  were  looking  forward  with  pleas- 
ure to  returning  to  their  comrades  and  their 
school  life.  The  child  who  is  not  strong  enough 
to  throw  oif  the  home  influence,  the  being  **tied  to 
mother's  apron  strings,"  or  the  overwhelming 
awe  of  a  despotic  father,  will  find  more  suffering 
at  school  if  the  teacher  belongs  to  a  large  group  of 
instructors  who  study  the  principles  of  logical 
thinking  and  apply  those  rules  to  all  mental  be- 
haviour without  appreciating  the  lack  of  reason- 
ing power  in  childhood,  and  the  conscious  and  un- 
conscious problems  of  adolescence.  How  much 
knowledge  has  the  average  teacher  of  a  child's 
mind?  The  difference  between  the  mature  and 
the  youthful  mind  deserves  attention.  The 
younger  a  child  is,  the  more  closely  is  his  mental 
behaviour  tied  to  the  needs  of  the  moment.  The 
child  is  incapable,  as  we  have  seen,  of  working 

84 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

intentionally  toward  a  remote  end.  He  is  work- 
ing for  self-preservation.  For  this  reason  steadi- 
ness of  purpose  is  not  in  him.  It  is  the  parents' 
and  teachers'  business  to  help  him  toward  that 
end,  but,  in  the  meantime,  not  to  make  de- 
mands upon  him  which  presume  his  knowledge 
of  its  existence.  Making  such  demands  must 
lead  to  disappointment  and  possibly  to  injus- 
tice. 

We  expect  too  much  of  children  and  in  so  doing 
are  unquestionably  selfish  ourselves.  It  is  less 
work  for  a  teacher  if  a  pupil  recites  a  perfect 
lesson,  even  in  a  parrot-like  style.  It  is  selfish 
pride  which  a  parent  feels  when  a  child  is  success- 
ful in  school,  neat  in  appearance,  obedient  to  com- 
mands. **That  child  is  a  credit  to  you,"  says  a 
neighbour,  and  the  parent  swells  with  that  selfish- 
ness which  we  call  pride.  Later  on,  when  the  child 
begins  to  live  for  himself,  there  may  be  a  debit 
page  containing  what  the  parent  owes  the 
child. 

So  when  we  say  that  to  work  toward  an  end, 
to  choose  means  of  working,  and  to  learn  by  ex- 
perience, are  general  characteristics  of  mental 
growth  as  we  know  it,  we  must  remember  that 
these  characteristics  may  be  rudimentary  and  as 
they  develop  have  not  always  the  same  form.  The 
behaviour  of  infants  makes  toward  ends  whose 
attainment  brings  satisfaction,  but  these  ends  are 
not  forethought,  nor  are  they  foreseen  in  the 

85 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

imagination,  as  are  the  ends  at  which  the  adult 
aims.  We,  the  onlookers,  observe  merely  that  the 
child  *s  conduct  is  a  process  toward  the  removal 
of  some  uneasiness,  or  the  attainment  of  some 
satisfaction,  but  the  child  himself  does  not  regard 
it  in  that  light.  In  psychoanalytic  treatment  we 
can  see  that  mental  and  functional  disturbances 
are  processes  which  the  patient  conducts  for  the 
removal  of  some  uneasiness  in  his  life,  an  uneasi- 
ness which  comes  from  the  too  great  difficulty  of 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  finds  himself,  finan- 
cial, domestic,  moral,  or  what  not,  and  thus  post- 
pones the  hour  of  meeting  them.  Illness  is  fre- 
quently the  regression  of  the  libido  to  child- 
hood. 


A  CASE  OF  EEGRESSION 

An  example  of  the  regression  of  the  libido  was 
shown  in  the  case  of  a  man  of  thirty-seven,  mar- 
ried, and  having  one  child,  a  daughter  four  years 
old.  He  worked  in  a  store  owned  by  an  older 
brother  and  himself.  The  older  brother  and  his 
wife  and  children  were  better  dressed  and  seemed 
to  have  more  money  than  the  patient,  whose  wife 
became  jealous.  She  urged  the  patient  to  buy  out 
his  brother's  share  of  the  store,  also  selected  a 
house  she  wanted  the  patient  to  buy  for  her.  The 
patient  hesitated  to  assume  so  much  financial  re- 
sponsibility, but  his  wife  declared  if  he  loved  her 

86 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

and  the  child  he  would  be  willing  to  do  it.  She 
continually  pressed  him  harder  and  harder  to 
rise  up  to  a  '* higher  life"  as  she  called  it,  but 
he,  being  the  youngest  of  the  three  sons  and 
always  treated  as  the  little  boy  of  the  family,  felt 
unequal  to  satisfy  his  ambitious  wife.  His 
thoughts  became  more  and  more  confused,  he 
could  not  work  in  the  store,  complained  of  pain 
and  pressure  in  his  head,  especially  the  forehead 
and  eyes.  He  began  the  usual  rounds  of  physi- 
cians with  prescriptions  of  rest,  change  and  medi- 
cal treatment,  none  of  which  relieved  him  of  the 
ambitious  wife.  He  blamed  himself  for  not  doing 
as  she  wished,  he  declared  she  was  right  and  if 
he  could  only  get  his  head  relieved  he  would  buy 
the  store  from  his  brother.  The  first  dream  he 
brought  showed  himself  as  having  climbed  a 
ladder — or  something  high — with  a  small  boy. 
There  were  thousands  of  people  at  the  top — his 
wife  was  there,  but  it  was  very  noisy  like  a  car- 
nival and  he  did  not  like  it.  The  little  boy  dared 
the  patient  to  jump  down  and  said  he  would  jump 
with  the  patient.  So  the  patient  took  hold  of  the 
little  boy  and  they  both  jumped  down  together, 
the  patient  clinging  to  the  boy.  This  is  a  perfect 
picture  of  the  patient  going  down  into  a  neurosis 
— to  childhood — to  get  rid  of  his  wife's  ambitions 
for  him.  He  said  his  mother  never  cared  whether 
he  worked  or  not.  His  father  died  when  the  pa- 
tient was  eight  years  old. 

87 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

ILLNESS  A  RBGEESSION 

This  statement  of  the  regression  of  the  libido  to 
childhood  is  one  of  the  apparent  paradoxes  of  the 
newer  psychology,  and  is  to  be  explained  in  the 
following  manner :  "When  a  person  is  ill  he  is,  in 
more  than  one  way,  in  a  condition  very  like  in- 
fancy and  takes  the  same  satisfaction  that  an  in- 
fant takes  out  of  the  situation  of  being  an  infant. 
He  does  not  himself  work,  but  others  work  for 
him,  ministering  to  his  every  need  and  necessar- 
ily, of  course,  treating  him  as  if  he  were  an  infant. 
He  has  a  nurse,  who  humours  him,  amuses  him, 
washes  him,  feeds  him.  He  is  free  to  indulge  his 
idle  fancies.  Any  situation  approaching  this  in 
any  way  has  in  it  more  or  less  of  the  element  of 
infantility.  It  is  quite  natural  for  adults  to  look 
upon  an  illness  as  a  rest  after  great  efforts  or 
mental  strain,  and  it  is  quite  comprehensible  that 
some  adults,  unconsciously  if  not  consciously  re- 
gard the  milder  degrees  of  ill  health  as  a  means 
by  which  they  may  control  the  situation,  and,  un- 
consciously at  any  rate,  wish  to  gain  that  control 
at  any  cost,  even  at  the  cost  of  personal  pain  and 
weakness.  In  such  weakness  there  is  great 
strength,  and  the  unconscious  evidently  avails  it- 
self of  this  opportunity  to  secure  power,  particu- 
larly when  the  desire  for  power  is  blocked  in  other 
directions,  as  it  inevitably  is  in  ill  success  or  dis- 

88 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

appointment  of  many  kinds.  For  a  person  who 
is  really  ill  every  one  is  ready  to  do  favours,  and 
particularly  for  children,  because  nothing  is  as 
pathetic  as  a  sick  child.  In  illness  the  child  re- 
gresses to  the  helplessness  of  the  infant,  and  by 
bis  very  helplessness  exerts  a  power  over  all  the 
persons  in  his  environment.  It  thus  happens  that 
the  child  who  has  a  serious  illness  suddenly  finds 
himself  with  every  one  about  him  subject  to  his 
lightest  caprice.  This  unexpected  accession  of 
power  makes  a  deep  and  unforgettable  impression 
on  him,  and  it  is  no  wonder  if  he  strenuously  ob- 
jects to  losing  his  power.  In  fact,  every  one 
knows  how  difficult  it  is  to  take  away  privileges 
from  any  one.  And  the  child  is  not  expected  to 
have  any  sense  of  social  obligation  or  to  under- 
stand that  his  requiring  all  the  attention  of  at 
least  one  person  all  the  time  is  an  economic  waste. 
In  fact,  very  few  adults  think  as  much  of  this  as 
they  should. 

The  aim  of  every  individual  should  be  economic 
productiveness.  This  consists  not  merely  in 
growing  grain  or  other  agricultural  products,  or 
mining,  or  even  in  commerce  through  making  the 
products  by  transportation  available  to  many 
people;  but  it  also  consists  in  giving  pleasure 
through  works  of  art,  thus  furnishing  the  emo- 
tional incentive  necessary  to  any  kind  of  produc- 
tive activity. 

89 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  RICH 

From  this  point  of  view,  only  as  much  atten- 
tion as  is  absolutely  necessary  should  be  given 
to  children,  to  keep  them  healthy  and  wholesomely 
occupied,  and  to  give  them  little  by  little  the  idea 
that  it  is  their  duty  also  to  become  productive 
in  some  way.  From  this  point  of  view  the  rich 
man's  wife,  who  is  usually  in  no  way  productive, 
but  only  destructive  of  dresses,  furniture,  auto- 
mobiles, etc.,  is  the  worst  possible  mother,  for  she 
cannot  give  the  example  of  productiveness  to  her 
sons  and  daughters  in  the  most  impressionable 
years  of  their  lives.  The  idle  rich  mother,  too,  is 
utterly  unable  to  do  other  than  harm  her  children 
if  she  hands  them  over  to  nurses,  governesses 
and  tutors,  unless  she  be  a  business  woman,  be- 
cause she  has,  on  account  of  her  idleness,  no 
proper  concept  herself  of  what  true  productive- 
ness is.  Children  of  such  homes,  therefore,  are 
brought  up  under  very  serious  disadvantages 
compared  to  those  who  are  forced  by  circum- 
stances to  give  heed  to  the  call  of  the  social  en- 
vironment, either  to  help  in  some  way  to  earn 
their  living  or  to  prepare  to  do  so.  And  the 
enforced  limitation  of  the  care  of  what  are  called 
less  fortunate  children,  and  the  lack  of  oppor- 
tunity to  humour  them  in  illness,  is  in  reality  an 
advantage,  if  they  can  be  made  to  realize  the  inde- 
pendence, which  it  will  give  them  in  later  life, 

90 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  children  of  the  rich  are  jealous  of  the  privi- 
leges and  power  of  their  parents,  the  girls  are 
jealous  of  the  mother  and  the  boys  are  jealous,  of 
the  father.  All  this  goes  on  normally  in  the  un- 
conscious, even  if  the  manifestations  of  it  never 
appear  in  conscious  thought  or  action.  Also  the 
parents  are  jealous  of  the  youth  and  vitality, 
sometimes,  and  freedom  from  responsibility  which 
the  children  enjoy.  In  most  cases  of  difficult  chil- 
dren there  will  be  found  some  one  of  these  varia- 
tions well  developed  in  the  unconscious  of  one  or 
both  parties  to  any  family  situation, 

Let  the  readers  of  this  book  examine  their  own 
mental  behaviour  and  observe  how  consciousness 
is  refreshed  and  vivified  by  a  change  of  scene  and 
thought,  to  gain  which  we  go  to  the  theatre  or 
travel,  and  how  monotony,  as  for  instance  that  of 
a  prosy  sermon,  induces  sleep  and  dulls  conscious- 
ness. How  often  both  teacher  and  pupil  watch 
the  hands  of  the  clock  for  closing  hour.  But 
should  a  telegram  come  that  the  teacher's  dearest 
friend  was  arriving  how  wideawake  the  teacher's 
consciousness  becomes,  as  indeed  does  that  of  the 
child  if  dismissed  half  an  hour  earlier  than  usual. 
Change  then  there  must  always  be,  as  long  as  we 
are  conscious,  a  change  from  work  to  play,  from 
^lay  to  rest,  and  so  on,  swinging  like  a  pendulum. 
This  change  preserves  our  balance,  or  we  go  con- 
tinuously in  a  circle,  moving  to  the  place  of  begin- 

91 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHILD 

ning.  A  life  which  moves  on  continuously  without 
rest  finds  itself  back  at  the  beginning,  which  is  the 
helplessness  of  illness  or  of  second  childhood. 
The  necessity  for  this  change  was  realized  thou- 
sands of  years  ago,  when  we  were  given  the  fourth 
commandment. 


THE  DISPOSITION 

In  spite  of  all  the  many  changes  in  thought, 
there  is  for  all  of  us  no  change  in  the  personal 
identity  of  our  experience.  The  pendulum  keeps 
moving  the  hands  of  the  clock  forward,  and  in  this 
sense  there  is  no  break  in  continuity.  The  man  of 
set  interests  has  a  fixed  purpose,  but  the  child 
shows  by  the  abrupt  capering  of  his  mind  that  he 
does  not  possess  fixity  of  purpose.  While  the 
mind  is  developing,  continually  unfolding,  the 
process  is  an  unbroken  one,  each  new  phase  being 
a  modification  of  the  experience  of  the  previous 
moment.  In  new  circumstances  our  behaviour  is 
built  upon  the  experiences  of  the  past,  is  but  a 
development  of  them,  and  is  not  something  en- 
tirely new  in  every  one  of  its  factors.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  elements  making  up  any  given  ex- 
perience is  composed  of  tendencies  produced  by 
past  experiences,  which,  as  they  are  modified  by 
the  new  surroundings,  are  changed.  They  do  not 
retain  their  original  form  but  themselves  produce 
effects  that  may  be  traced  as  factors  of  subse- 

92 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

quent  mental  behaviour.  The  sum  of  these 
factors  at  any  given  stage  of  mental  develop- 
ment constitutes  what  is  called  the  disposition. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  disposition  as  we  speak  of 
a  sweet  disposition  or  a  surly  disposition,  but  a 
much  more  inclusive  and  fundamental  arrange- 
ment of  mental  factors  which  make  up  the  whole 
of  the  individuars  personality. 

It  is  evident  that  the  mental  factors  entering 
into  the  child's  disposition,  understood  in  this 
broad  sense,  are  very  different  from  those  of  the 
adult's  disposition.  The  difference  between  child 
and  adult  is  much  like  that  between  a  boy's  push- 
mobile  and  a  high-powered  motor  car.  Only  one 
who  is  deficient  in  judgment  or  sense  would  ex- 
pect the  same  service  from  the  toy  as  that  from 
the  real  automobile.  But  it  is  an  almost  universal 
failing  among  parents  to  expect  the  child  to  be 
like  an  adult  in  action  and  feeling,  and  it  is 
practically  impossible  for  the  majority  of  adults 
to  understand  and  make  allowances  for  the  limita- 
tions of  the  child  in  the  mental  and  moral  spheres. 
With  remarkable  irony  the  adult  does  make  al- 
lowances for  the  child's  physical  limitations,  and 
frequently  goes  out  of  his  way  to  give  the  child 
physical  help  where  it  is  least  needed,  at  the  same 
time  expecting  him  to  show  traits  of  the  mental 
and  moral  character  which  are  quite  beyond  his 
stage  of  development.  It  is  folly  to  send  a  boy 
on  a  man's  errand,  but  we  are  doing  it  all  the  time. 

93 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

CONATION 

I  will  now  ask  the  reader  to  observe  certain 
broad  aspects  of  mental  life  which  have  been  im- 
plied in  what  has  been  already  said.  We  have, 
for  example,  noticed  that  a  certain  purpose  of 
conduct,  working  to  relieve  uneasiness  or  attain 
satisfaction  characterizes  the  behaviour  of  the 
child,  and  of  animals,  as  the  dog,  and  indeed  that 
this  quality  is  significant  of  mental  activity  in 
general.  The  student  will  recognize  at  once  that 
he  is  not  merely  a  passive  being,  like  a  stick  tossed 
by  the  waves.  He  feels  himself  to  be  a  craving 
and  a  striving  force,  which  we  call  the  libido.  He 
is  not  content  to  be  the  sport  of  his  environment, 
but  endeavours  actively  to  fit  himself  to  it,  or  to 
adapt  it  to  his  needs.  The  actions  of  parents 
often  make  it  very  difficult  for  a  child  to  attain 
any  reasonable  degree  of  satisfaction  of  this  crav- 
ing. Their  treatment  is  sometimes  like  a  con- 
tinual attempt  to  do  things  for  the  child,  to  do 
things  which  the  child  wants  to  do  himself,  and 
will  profit  only  by  doing  himself.  Many  a  child's 
play  has  been  spoiled  by  the  advent  of  an  adult 
who  tries  to  tell  the  child  how  to  do  it,  and  in  the 
end  does  it  '^for"  him — a  much  mistaken  idea  of 
the  proper  meaning  of  the  word  *^for.''  Much 
better  would  it  be  if  the  child  were  in  such  a  case 
treated  with  a  good  measure  of  what  has  been 
neatly  termed  ^'wholesome  neglect." 

94 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

COGNITION 

This  feature  of  mental  behaviour,  where  the  in- 
dividual gets  most  satisfaction  from  expending 
his  own  energies  in  the  attainment  of  an  end,  be 
it  an  immediate  or  a  remote  end,  is  what  the  psy- 
chologist has  in  mind  when  he  calls  it  ^'conative'' 
(from  the  Latin  conari — to  strive) ;  and  the  psy- 
choanalyst calls  it  the  urge  or  striving  of  the 
libido,  always  tending  toward  some  end  which  will 
give  satisfaction.  But  we  must  also  notice  that 
this  mental  activity  is  not  a  mere  striving  to  no 
purpose.  There  is  a  state  of  awareness  of  some 
degree  at  every  stage.  The  intellectual  process 
causes  the  dog  to  change  his  path  when  obstructed 
by  an  obstacle,  and  enables  a  man  to  conceive  the 
principle  of  duty  and  of  resisting  temptation. 
The  fact  that  mental  activity  is  always  a  process 
of  knowing  in  some  way  is  expressed  by  the  phy- 
chologist  as  the  cognitive  aspect  of  mental  be- 
haviour (Latin  cognoscere — to  know).  And  every 
stage  of  self-observation  is  a  further  stage  in  the 
conation  or  purpose,  and  in  the  cognition  of  our 
own  behaviour. 

FEELING 

But,  the  student  will  say,  and  rightly  too,  that 
we  have  not  yet  exhausted  all  we  find  in  our 
mental  behaviour.  We  are  not  merely  knowing 
and  striving  creatures,  making  toward  ends  and 

95 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

aware  of  objects,  but  we  have  left  out  all  the 
warmth  and  inthuate  character  of  the  life  that  is 
peculiar  to  each  person.  We  have  left  out  the 
feelings,  what  the  psychologists  call  the  affective 
side  of  mental  behaviour.  Our  experience  is  not 
merely  conation  plus  cognition  (striving  plus 
knowing).  It  is  at  the  same  time  bdng  affected 
in  some  way,  a  mode  of  feeling  which  we  call  the 
emotions.  Thus  the  striving  and  knowing  in  the 
effort  toward  adjustment  of  self  to  environment 
is  accompanied  by  the  emotions  with  reactions  of 
forces  constructive  or  destructive.  The  emotional 
reactions  of  affection,  pleasure  and  interest  we 
call  constructive,  those  of  fear,  anger  or  dis- 
pleasure are  destructive.  In  the  child,  pleasure 
depends  largely  upon  the  relation  of  sensory  ex- 
perience to  the  trend  of  activity  at  the  moment. 
No  experience  is  pleasant  to  us  if  it  interrupts  and 
obstructs  our  work  and  desires.  Successful  prog- 
ress is  pleasant.  When  the  ball  or  shot  goes  just 
where  it  is  aimed,  the  pleasure  and  satisfaction 
are  more  intense.  If  we  can  teach  our  children 
that  an  unexpected  obstacle  can  for  a  moment  be 
unpleasant  because  it  baffles,  but  the  pleasure  is 
great  when  it  is  overcome,  we  do  them  a  great 
service.  Not  by  commands  but  by  encouragement 
can  we  best  teach  them.  On  the  other  hand,  an 
insurmountable  obstacle  in  the  path  of  a  child's 
growth  and  progress  against  which  he  struggles 
vainly,  as  a  prisoner  against  prison  walls,  is  un- 

96 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

pleasant  proportionally  to  the  strength  of  his  de- 
sire for  that  which  it  prevents  him  from  attain- 
ing. The  more  anxious  one  is  to  keep  an  appoint- 
ment, the  greater  one's  annoyance  if  the  automo- 
bile breaks  down  on  the  way.  Here  again  the 
parents  and  teachers  must  be  careful  to  take  fair 
measures  of  the  children  under  their  care,  and  not 
to  judge  the  young  minds  by  their  own.  Children 
are  more  easily  discouraged  by  obstacles ;  the  end 
to  be  achieved  does  not  loom  so  large  in  their  lives 
as  we  imagine.  We  need  to  make  their  courses 
relatively  smooth  or  they  soon  lose  heart.  It  is 
impossible  to  overemphasize  the  great  importance 
of  the  child's  inability  to  keep  in  view  the  purpose 
for  which  we  want  him  to  work.  They  are  also 
weaker  than  we  in  the  power  of  analysis,  and  in 
face  of  difficulties  they  often  make  wild  attempts 
at  the  truth  to  protect  themselves  in  fear  of  the 
overpowering  authority.  Then  we  call  them  un- 
truthful. Indeed  we  find  that  a  lad's  method  of 
dealing  with  difficulties  is  the  more  **wild,"  the 
more  anxious  he  is  about  the  result. 

The  child  whose  mind  is  unable  to  follow  the 
monotony  of  school  and  lessons,  who  is  either  too 
sluggish  or  too  unstable,  should  be  carefully 
watched  for  the  reactions  which  stimulate  this 
sluggishness  or  unstability.  Keenest  attention  is 
sometimes  aroused  by  change  in  what  is  familiar. 
Change,  if  not  too  extreme,  gives  scope  for  more 
vigorous  exercise  of  our  activities  of  perception 

97 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

and  thought,  while  monotonous  experience  con- 
stricts them.  Unsatisfactory  results  with  chil- 
dren may  not  be  the  child's  fault,  but  the  teacher's 
or  parents',  who  are  not  able  to  keep  their  own 
problems  in  the  background  when  dealing  with 
children.  The  wild,  free  nature  of  the  child  may 
be  so  restricted  and  restrained  by  his  surround- 
ings that  he  cannot  give  vent  to  the  natural  rough 
and  tumble  of  his  nature.  The  effeminate  side  of 
his  nature  is  gradually  overdeveloped. 


AN  *^ impossible"  BOY 

A  boy  of  fourteen  came  under  my  observation 
for  being  ** impossible  at  home."  He  was  rather 
undersized,  but  healthy  in  all  respects, — good  di- 
gestion, sleeping  well,  etc. — although  rather  deli- 
cate in  appearance.  He  delighted  in  teasing  the 
servants,  often  causing  them  to  leave  after  a  few 
days,  which  brought  despair  to  his  mother.  His 
method  of  teasing  was  to  jump  at  them  around 
corners  or  open  doors,  going  into  the  kitchen  and 
freely  helping  himself  to  anything  he  wanted, 
leaving  the  ice-box  door  open  or  spilling  on  the 
floor  or  table  whatever  he  helped  himself  to.  He 
was  utterly  regardless  of  any  one's  feelings  or 
convenience.  The  family  cat  and  dog  rushed 
away  when  he  approached,  for  he  always  jumped 
and  shouted  at  them.  He  '^shooed"  the  canary 
to  make  it  flutter  around  in  the  cage.    In  fact, 

98 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

pets  were  impossible  where  he  was.  He  talked 
much  of  murder  and  of  people  committing  suicide. 
Walking  on  a  village  street  one  foggy  night  we 
passed  a  yard  with  much  shrubbery.  *^A  fine 
place  for  a  murder/'  he  commented.  When  a 
missing  member  of  the  family  was  inquired  after, 
he  would  say:  *'I  guess  he  has  jumped  out  of  the 
window,''  or  **He  has  gone  into  the  bathroom  to 
make  an  end  of  himself. ' ' 

Analysis  made  it  evident  that  there  was  a 
severe  conflict  going  on  in  the  boy's  unconscious 
about  what  to  do  concerning  some  unbearable 
situation.  His  real  enemy,  the  killing  of  whom 
would  have  been  one  solution  of  his  mental  con- 
flict, was  his  father.  Of  course  no  one,  not  even 
the  boy  himself,  was  aware  of  this,  though  any 
one  who  knew  all  the  details  of  the  case  and  took 
in  the  whole  situation  impartially  and  merely  as 
a  concrete  physical  and  spiritual  environment  of 
the  boy,  could  realize  that  the  father  was  the 
greatest  obstruction  to  the  boy's  natural  cravings. 
The  boy  was  treated  with  absolute  lack  of  under- 
standing, or  even  consideration,  by  a  completely 
selfish  father.  The  libido  which  meets  rebuffs 
at  every  turn  naturally  seeks  to  destroy  them, 
even  though  on  the  outside  the  unfortunate  in- 
dividual complies  with  all  the  requirements  made 
upon  him.  The  boy  never  was  consulted  as  to 
what  he  would  like  to  do,  and  after  a  while  formed 
the  habit  of  obediently  saying,  **Yes,  father,"  to 

99 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

every  command,  and  became  externally  a  very 
passive,  ladylike  boy.  It  was  this  superficial 
meekness  wbich  caused  the  conflict  above  referred 
to.  It  was  this  situation  which  irresistibly  turned 
the  child's  mind  to  thoughts  of  murder  and  death. 
Naturally  these  thoughts  could  not  be  consciously 
associated  with  the  real  cause  of  them,  the  father, 
and  so  the  boy  expressed,  by  his  treatment  of  the 
pets,  the  servants,  and  by  stealing  the  food  from 
the  ice-box  the  unconscious  desires  for  destruction 
which  were  gradually  developing  in  his  mind.  At 
the  present  time  he  is  not  well,  occasionally  faints 
away  and  is  said  to  have  a  weak  heart,  and  no 
wonder.  He  will  hold  a  position  for  several  years, 
but  with  no  interest  in  advancing,  just  *^  staying 
put''  and  plodding  along.  The  father  congratu- 
lates himself  he  has  managed  well  in  bringing  up 
that  boy.  Ten  years  hence,  when  he  sees  the  boy 
in  the  same  position  without  advancement  he 
will  blame  the  boy,  while  we  have  seen  that 
the  boy  himself,  was  aware  of  this,  though  any 
assertion. 

Another  case  with  different  results.  There  was 
the  same  type  of  despotic  father,  who  freely  used 
corporal  punishment,  spoiling  both  the  rod  and 
the  child.  AVhen  twelve  years  old  the  boy  was 
fun-loving,  with  superabundance  of  energy,  and 
his  mischievous  pranks  or  disobedience,  such  as 
being  late  for  dinner,  careless  in  his  toilette  and 
other  boyish  failings,  were  severely  punished  with 

100 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

hard  thrashings.  The  boy  would  be  sent  to  bed 
where  he  would  cry  and  sob  with  the  physical 
pain,  to  say  nothing  of  the  wounded  young  man- 
hood. This  boy  had  too  much  spirit  to  become 
crushed  and  effeminate.  He  was  physically  large, 
and  became  hard  and  lawless,  was  expelled  from 
school,  would  not  work,  ran  away  to  a  western 
mining  camp,  gambled,  was  utterly  without  pur- 
pose and  became  the  problem  of  the  family. 

ANOTHER   CASE 

Another  boy,  now  thirty-three,  drifted  from  one 
position  to  another,  but  has  never  been  able  to 
separate  himself  from  the  home  influence,  which 
was  this  time  a  mother  who  would  never  allow 
him  to  play  in  ways  which  soiled  his  clothing.  He 
was  dressed  in  velvet  suits,  and  shown  how  much 
more  attractive  he  was  than  the  bad  boys  with 
dirty  hands  and  '' smelly''  clothes.  He  grew  tall, 
became  a  scholarly  lad  with  polished  manners,  led 
his  class  in  college,  then  developed  dramatic 
tastes,  playing  always  in  tragedy.  His  parents 
were  horrified  with  his  stage  propensities  and 
forbade  them.  Then  came  a  nervous  breakdown 
and  an  analysis  was  sought,  after  which  he  had  a 
taste  of  real  freedom  of  life  in  a  cowboy's  exist- 
ence. Afterward  he  entered  business  life.  Many 
other  cases  could  be  cited  of  the  adult  life  unfitted 
for  success,  cases  in  which,  when  an  analysis  has 

101 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

set  them  right,  we  have  seen  that  the  emotional 
life  had  been  totally  inadequate  in  youth. 


A  boys'  club 

There  is  a  period  called  the  latency  period  of 
childhood  which  occurs  about  the  time  of  the  sec- 
ond dentition,  when  the  helplessness  of  childhood 
is  succeeded  by  a  full-fledged  young  animal  who 
wants  to  try  his  new-found  powers.  He  is  ready 
to  run  wild,  if  opportunity  offers,  and  then  is  the 
time  parents  should  make  home  the  most  attrac- 
tive place  and  freely  allow  the  boy's  companions 
to  come  and  go.  ^^I  have  only  one  son,  but  I 
might  just  as  well  have  a  dozen,  the  house  is 
always  full  of  boys,"  said  a  wise  mother,  who 
endeavoured  to  make  home  the  most  attractive 
place  for  her  son  and  placed  no  restrictions  on 
muddy  shoes  and  noise.  However,  she  mastered 
the  situation  by  building  a  playhouse  in  the  yard 
of  their  suburban  home.  A  partition  was  built 
across  one  end,  and  there  were  placed  the  treas- 
ures. The  outer  room  was  the  general  meeting 
place  of  all  the  boys  in  the  neighbourhood.  An 
occasional  feast  of  sandwiches,  cake  and  lemon- 
ade made  the  house  popular,  and  while  other 
mothers  were  telephoning  for  their  sons  to  come 
home,  this  mother's  mind  was  at  rest.  Her  son 
was  always  home,  yet  having  perfect  freedom  of 
play  and  action.    He  organized  a  boys'  club,  with 

102 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

flowing  robes  for  the  officers,  and  how  real  and  im- 
pressive it  was  to  those  boys!  And  yet  the  im- 
posing robes  were  most  simple,  and  inexpensive, 
made  of  that  material  known  as  ** Turkey  red." 
(Red  the  colour  of  life.)  A  secret  motto  and  grip 
were  agreed  upon.  Each  boy  had  to  sharpen  his 
wits  to  present  some  original  thoughts  for  their 
meetings  in  order  to  claim  attention  from  the 
others.  Years  have  passed  since  that  particular 
playhouse  was  used.  Many  of  the  boys  later 
held  high  military  positions  in  the  army  in  the 
great  European  conflict.  Did  the  opportunities 
offered  in  that  playhouse  for  arousing  ambitions 
of  leadership  carry  those  boys  through  to  high 
positions  of  trust!  I  think  so.  Unconsciously 
those  boys  had  learned  the  secret  of  success, 
namely,  to  be  doers,  not  dreamers.  *^Do  noble 
things,  not  dream  them  all  day  long."  They 
wanted  to  show  the  other  boys  of  the  village  that 
to  belong  to  their  club  was  an  honour,  and  they 
were  kept  busy  wondering  how  to  manage  and 

make  the  outside  boys  realize  that  the club 

was  a  real  club  and  going  to  last  forever,  so  real  it 
seemed  to  them. 

A  wise  mother,  with  a  troublesome  boy  who  was 
always  backward  in  school,  although  very  bright 
otherwise,  found  it  interesting  to  read  of  the 
school  days  of  many  prominent  men  and  learn  that 
Spencer,  Carlyle,  Ruskin  and  Shakespeare  were 
poor  students.     She  wondered  exceedingly  why 

103 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

such  minds  who  became  world-renowned,  should 
have  had  such  boyhood  troubles.  She  dimly  sus- 
pected the  studies  were  not  right  nor  suitable  for 
her  boy,  but  questioning  him  did  no  good.  He 
did  not  know  what  he  wanted,  while  the  father  de- 
clared she  was  only  finding  excuses  for  the  boy. 
Schools  and  colleges  are  dimly  seeing  that  the 
student  may  know  better  what  interests  him  than 
the  professors,  and  thus  they  are  offering  elective 
courses,  where  a  student  may  select  the  subjects 
which  appeal  to  him.  True,  the  student  may  fol- 
low the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  select  the 
easier  subjects  to  enable  him  to  get  a  college  de- 
gree, but  why  does  he  do  it?  There  is  a  reason 
why  he  prefers  play  to  work  for  which  he  is  not 
entirely  responsible.  He  will  work  through  and 
college  will  help  him  get  a  firmer  grasp  of  him- 
self. Our  knowledge  is  not  entirely  gained  from 
textbooks  and  it  is  one  of  the  many  surprises 
awaiting  a  young  physician  that  he  must  learn  to 
make  a  diagnosis  where  he  cannot  follow  the  text- 
book. And  so  the  college  gives  only  a  founda- 
tional knowledge  for  the  young  man  to  build  his 
life  on.  In  this  respect  the  teacher,  especially  if 
he  has  not  sufficient  understanding  of  the  psy- 
chology of  behaviour,  sometimes  makes  it  difficult 
for  his  pupils  by  narrowing  down  the  object  of 
college  training  to  what  is  learned  from  pedagogi- 
cal textbooks.  The  college  boy  has  probably 
grown  out  of  the  purely  instinctive  and  emulative 

104 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

stage  of  behaviour,  but  as  a  rule  liis  interests  are 
in  the  adolescent  stage.  If  the  boy  learns  from 
fear  of  his  professors  and  of  disgrace,  as  well  as 
duty  and  self-respect,  the  knowledge  learned  re- 
mains external  to  him.  Attention  with  effort 
is  never  proof  for  long  against  distracting  in- 
fluences. 

Thus  the  teacher  should  regard  the  appeal  to 
voluntary  attention  as  a  step  toward  formations 
of  new  interests  in  the  beginning  of  college  life. 
In  the  preparatory  school  the  students'  impulses 
are  mainly  toward  movement  and  doing,  not  to- 
ward thinking  and  knowing.  Sensible  instruction 
recognizes  this  fact  and  although  the  school  disci- 
pline results  in  submissive,  orderly  classes,  regu- 
larly learning  tasks,  we  know  the  boys  lead  two 
lives  and  that  richness  of  interests  belongs  to  the 
life  out  of  school.  Therefore,  the  preparatory 
schools,  taking  their  students  through  the  adoles- 
cent age,  so  full  of  temptations  and  dangers,  must 
limit  their  privileges,  keep  strict  watch  over  their 
habits  and  require  complete  obedience.  Upon  the 
entrance  to  college  the  student  meets  a  changed 
condition.  There  is  absolute  freedom,  he  can 
smoke,  stay  up  all  night  if  he  chooses,  but  the  ex- 
periences of  the  freshman  show  him  the  foot  of 
the  ladder  which  he  must  climb  in  some  humilia- 
tion, especially  if  he  joins  a  fraternity.  While 
college  hazing  is  condemned  because  it  reached 
such  extremes  that  life  was  endangered,  the  fresh- 

105 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

man  cap,  required  by  the  older  students,  is  one  of 
the  greatest  safeguards  to  the  new  liberty  of  the 
college  boy.  He  must  always  wear  it.  Breaking 
the  rule  meets  with  swift  and  sure  punishment  and 
is  more  efficacious  than  that  administered  by  legal 
processes.  The  college  professor  will  arouse  the 
interest  and  intelligence  of  his  pupils  by  present- 
ing his  information  so  that  they  can  assimilate  it 
and  not  merely  repeat  it  by  rote.  He  wants  them 
not  only  to  remember,  but  to  understand,  for  in- 
telligence grows,  like  an  organism,  only  by  what  it 
can  assimilate. 

ATTENTION 

Attention  is  a  selective  process.  If  yuu  listen 
intently  to  music  you  cannot  at  the  same  time 
watch  the  faces  of  the  audience;  if  you  are  ab- 
sorbed in  a  book  you  may  not  hear  the  clock 
strike.  In  all  attention  you  are  aware,  though 
more  vaguely,  of  other  things  beside  that  upon 
which  you  are  more  intent.  If  you  read  the  para- 
graph attentively  your  attention  is  concentrated 
upon  the  meaning,  but  you  must  also  see  the 
printed  words,  though  not  as  clearly  as  if  looking 
for  a  word  misprinted.  When  we  try  to  concen- 
trate upon  a  particular  subject  we  make  mental 
movements  of  adjustment.  In  the  child  we  see 
signs  of  inattention  and  know  he  is  unable  to  make 
the  mental  adjustment.  The  parent  and  teacher 
should  be  careful  to  distinguish  this  inability  to 

106 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

pay  attention  in  pupils  and  children  from  merely 
misdirected  attention.  The  latter  is  due  to  bore- 
dom with  their  lessons  and  to  the  superior  attrac- 
tion of  other  things ;  the  former  is  very  probably 
due  to  hunger,  ill  health,  fatigue  or  bad  ventila- 
tion of  the  class  room  (and  in  the  home,  to  too 
much  confinement  and  repression),  thus  throwing 
the  child  too  much  upon  himself  when  he  needs 
outside  activities.  The  difference  of  bodily  atti- 
tude is  a  sure  guide  for  watchful  eyes.  In  one 
case  the  child  is  alert,  looking  for  something  or 
thinking  actively  about  something;  in  the  others, 
his  whole  body  relaxes,  his  eyes  look  dull  and  face 
lacks  animation.  Is  it  not  absurd  to  punish  a  child 
for  inattention?  Worse  than  absurd,  for  the  inat- 
tention is  usually  caused  by  our  ignorance. 

The  amount  of  initiative  and  perseverance  a 
child  shows  is  important.  He  is  usually  very  per- 
sistent in  his  play,  works  up  to  his  strength  in 
attempting  to  lift  heavy  weights.  Do  not  help 
him.  The  chances  are  you  will  annoy  him  and  he 
will  not  learn  his  strength.  Mme.  Montessori 
wisely  warns  us  not  to  seize  the  shovel  when  the 
child  is  filling  his  pail  with  sand  and  fill  it  for  him. 
He  needs  the  muscular  exercise  and  the  motor 
control  he  is  gaining.  Notice  the  child's  delight 
in  his  success.  Try  to  put  yourself  in  his  place 
and  endeavour  to  feel  the  satisfaction  which  re- 
sults from  his  accomplishing  the  full  pail  of  sand 
which  he  lifts  and  empties.    What  a  stunting  ef- 

107 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

feet  on  that  child  to  fill  the  pail  for  him !  In  the 
psychoanalysis  of  an  adult,  how  often  we  find  the 
beginning  of  the  problems  so  disturbing  to  success 
to  have  been  misdirected  efforts  in  childhood,  not 
one  effort,  but  many,  which  grouped  and  woven  to- 
gether have  made  a  bizarre  pattern  of  life.  It  re- 
quires delicate  handling  to  separate  the  warp  and 
woof  of  past  experiences  and  arrange  them  in  a 
strong,  well-woven  material  to  stand  the  great 
strain  of  life's  pressure. 

There  are  times  in  our  own  lives  when  we  need 
great  strength  and  power  to  meet  the  sorrows  and 
disappointments  we  have  to  face.  How  do  we  get 
the  strength,  where  does  it  come  from?  Why  are 
some  leaders  and  other  people  of  splendid 
physique  and  great  courage,  truly  efficient  and 
capable?  If,  when  you  were  young,  you  had  a 
large  circle  of  acquaintances  and  visited  them, 
seeing  intimately  the  daily  family  life,  recall  the 
personality  and  influence  of  the  parents,  the  re- 
actions of  the  children,  and  you  will  find  the  ques- 
tion answered.  In  a  large  family  of  children  with 
a  capable  father  and  too  gentle  and  indulgent 
mother  you  will  find  more  capable  daughters  than 
sons.  Seldom  more  than  one  capable  son,  even  if 
there  are  several.  While  an  erratic  or  nervous 
father,  with  a  capable  mother,  produces  able  sons, 
and  daughters  who  have  difficulty  in  adjusting 
their  lives  to  their  environment.  The  only  child 
has  been  condemned  as  being  spoiled,  a  weakling, 

108 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

selfish,  disagreeable  to  associate  with  or  to  marry. 
Herbert  Spencer  was  an  only  child.  Every  family 
has  an  **only  child,"  the  one  who  receives  more 
attention  and  encouragement,  which  may  destroy 
him  or  open  larger  opportunities  for  success,  de- 
pending upon  the  parents.  We,  therefore,  do  not 
condemn  the  only  child. 


BUKBANK  ON  EDUCATION 

Luther  Burbank  has  shown  us  by  his  work  in 
changing  the  character  of  the  fruit  that  the  early 
development  is  the  most  important.  Just  as  we 
make  a  white  blackberry  by  a  selective  process, 
so  we  can  make  a  black  life  a  white  life  by  a  proc- 
ess of  elimination  used  in  psychoanalysis.  Bur- 
bank  plants  acres  of  seeds.  As  soon  as  those 
seeds  have  grown  through  the  first  phase  of  seed 
development  which  means  that  a  good  root-growth 
has  started,  he  walks  through  the  rows  of  plants 
and  marks  those  he  wants  preserved,  the  rest  are 
thrown  away.  He  works  thus  for  years  and  by 
elimination,  in  time,  changes  the  colour  of  the 
blackberry,  takes  the  seeds  from  the  orange,  the 
pit  from  the  plum.  While  those  changes  are  not 
all  considered  an  improvement  and  the  white 
blackberry  is  not  on  the  market  and  perhaps 
would  not  be  accepted,  so  tenaciously  do  people 
cling  to  methods  of  the  past,  we  learn  what  can  be 
done  vnth  life  by  the  elimination  of  certain  traits 

109 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

and  trends  of  character  through  psychoanalysis. 
These  may  be  fears,  phobias,  functional  neu- 
roses, or  hysterical  pains,  which  physicians  can 
never  cure,  although  they  often  use  the  knife  in 
their  belief  that  the  body  controls  the  mind,  as 
though  our  brains  were  in  the  ends  of  our  muscles 
instead  of  the  ends  of  the  nerves.  We  can  turn 
misery  into  happiness,  and  make  a  useful  and  ac- 
ceptable human  being  out  of  an  invalid  and  some- 
times out  of  a  criminal.^  The  applications  of  these 
psychological  methods  will  not  be  admitted  by 
people  who  want  to  give  way  to  the  lower  instincts 
buried  in  the  unconscious.  We  are  not  ladies  and 
gentlemen  in  the  unconscious  thought;  only  by 
self-control  in  following  the  conventions  of  life, 
observing  laws  which  civilization  has  worked  out 
as  best  for  the  preservation  of  the  race,  do  we 
become  gentle.  The  unconscious  mind  is  primitive, 
archaic,  savage.  The  savage  does  not  want  to 
preserve  the  race ;  he  is  not  an  adult  in  the  pres- 
ent-day meaning,  he  belongs  to  the  children  of 
the  race. 

A  man  of  Mr.  Burbank's  philosophical  cast  of 
mind  could  not  fail  to  give  a  vast  deal  of  thought, 
first  and  last,  to  the  question  of  a  possible  applica- 
tion of  knowledge  gained  in  the  experimental 
garden  to  better  development  of  the  human  race. 

1  It  is  an  interesting  fa<;t  that  Germany  would  not  accept  the 
methods  of  psychological  analysis,  as  Professor  Freud  has  stated 
in  his  review  of  the  countries  using  these  methods  of  relieving 
the  nervous  patients  from  their  sufferings. 

110 


MENTAL  BEHAVIOUR  OF  THE  CHILD 

Mr.  Burbank  has  not  only  thought  but  has  written 
and  talked  on  the  subject  very  extensively.    He 
has,  concerning  the  development  of  the  human 
plant,  very  pronounced  ideas  that  are  the  out- 
growth of  his  experimental  studies  with  plant  lif  e. 
In  psychoanalysis  we  understand  that  the  same 
general  principles  apply  to  all  life.    It  is  exceed- 
ingly interesting  to  find  Mr.  Burbank  approach- 
ing the  same  knowledge  through  the  vegetable 
kingdom.   He  has  been  able  to  make  tangible  appli- 
cation of  his  studies  in  this  field.    As  a  practical 
horticulturist  he  has  observed  that  everything  de- 
pends upon  the  treatment  the  seedling  receives  the 
first  few  weeks  or  days  of  its  life.    He  takes  in- 
finite pains  to  provide  just  the  right  environment 
of  soil,  conditions  of  moisture,  sunlight  and  shel- 
ter from  the  wind.    He  has  seen  it  demonstrated 
times  without  number  that  the  future  growth  and 
strength  of  the  plant  depended  upon  this  early 
treatment.    Making  application  to  the  human  be- 
ing, he  believes  that  few  people  fully  understand 
how  largely  the  body  and  mind  of  the  child  are 
moulded  by  the  environing  influence  of  infancy. 
He  urges  very  strenuously  that  life  should  be 
made  agreeable  for  the  young  child,  that  it  be 
kept  in  the  open,  allowed  to  play,  to  come  into  con- 
tact with  nature,  and  to  do  the  things  in  which 
childhood  naturally  delights.    When  the  child  has 
reached  the  school  age  Mr.  Burbank  would  have 
its  tasks  less  laborious  and  exacting  than  they 

111 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

sometimes  are.  He  would  pay  heed  to  all  stages 
of  the  child's  bodily  development,  knowing  full 
well  that  fine  blossoms  do  not  come  from  dwarfed 
plants. 

In  a  word,  he  would  make  the  environment  of 
childhood  and  adolescence  healthful,  stimulative 
and  pleasure-giving.  Only  by  so  doing  can  Mr. 
Burbank  secure  the  best  results  with  his  plants, 
and  only  by  a  comparable  line  of  action  in  our 
treatment  of  the  child,  can  we  count  on  making 
the  most  of  the  coming  human  generation. 


112 


CHAPTER  VI 

DEFENCE  BEACTIONS 

We  know  that  extreme  conditions  in  the  environ- 
ment are  hurtful  or  even  destructive  to  certain 
forms  of  life,  as  the  cold  of  the  polar  regions  chills 
and  prevents  life,  extreme  heat  burns  and  de- 
stroys, emptiness  starves  and  an  excess  cloys  and 
bursts, — but  we  perhaps  do  not  apply  that  knowl- 
edge to  the  mental,  psychic  and  emotional  environ- 
ment of  life.  We  use  the  metaphors  of  ^*  throwing 
cold  water,''  ** throwing  a  wet  blanket,''  ** damp- 
ening one's  ardour,"  in  the  sense  of  chilling  en- 
thusiasm, and  as  in  a  sudden  shock  creating  func- 
tional disturbance.  We  speak  of  the  **  white  heat 
of  passion,"  which  seems  to  bum  up  the  oxygen 
of  our*  blood  as  though  by  a  fiery  dose  of  alcohol. 
We  speak  of  *  *  bursting  with  news ' '  and  of  *  *  starv- 
ing for  fun  and  a  good  time."  Curiously  enough, 
we  often  speak  without  realizing  that  in  using 
such  figures  of  speech  we  are  stating  vital  condi- 
tions, and  we  would  feel  it  weakness  to  consider 
them  seriously.  To  give  way  to  enthusiasm,  to 
demand  happiness  when  we  have  made  strenuous 
effort,  and  to  insist  upon  a  recreation  of  pleasure 
and  satisfaction  after  a  hard  day's  work  seem  to 
us  rather  a  weakness  of  character  than  our  just 

113 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

due.  So  difficult  is  it  for  us  to  outgrow  the  habit 
of  thought  of  our  puritanical  ancestors,  suitable 
to  their  simple  life  but  ill  adapted  to  entirely 
modern  needs.  When  the  urge  of  life  pushing  out- 
ward, from  the  invisible  and  unknown  force 
within,  which  we  call  nature,  meets  any  of  the 
unfavourable  conditions  an  effort  is  made  by  this 
life  to  protect  itself  against  destruction  from 
these  conditions.  The  animal  life  in  frigid  zones 
protects  itself  by  very  thick  fur ;  there  is  no  vege- 
tation and  heating  food  is  supplied  in  fats.  In 
the  tropics  the  animal  life  is  protected  from  the 
burning  rays  by  thick  foliage,  while  plentiful 
fruits  provide  cooling  food  instead  of  the  heating 
fat  and  blubber  of  the  Arctic  regions.  Hitherto, 
no  attempt  has  been  made  to  understand  the  neu- 
rotic patient  as  one  who  fails  to  establish  an  ade- 
quate defence  against  the  unfavourable  environ- 
ment and  who  seeks  refuge  in  a  neurosis  and  ill- 
ness, thus  to  escape  the  unbearable — or,  as  one 
who  is  so  overcome  by  his  surroundings  that  he 
attempts  no  defence  and  is  being  destroyed  by  this 
leech-like  fastening  of  another  human  where  his 
life  force  is  drawn  out. 

Excessive  affections,  or,  as  we  say,  *^  being  loved 
to  death"  furnish  an  atmosphere  comparable  to 
the  heat  of  the  tropics  which  has  the  same  effect 
upon  the  person  subjected  to  it  as  does  the  intense 
heat  of  overpowering  affections.  Intense  heat 
from  a  tropical  sun  affects  the  head  and  brain,  and 

114 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

so  the  victim  upon  whom  excessive  affection  falls 
is  withered  and  blighted.  We  find  this  true  in 
married  life  where  the  lov.e  of  one  mate  seizes  the 
other  mate  with  a  death-like  clutch,  leaving  no 
freedom  of  action.  This  is  very  well  described  in 
a  poem  by  James  Oppenheim,  called  **The  Cling- 
ing Arms. ' ' 

**Push  off  the  clinging  arms! 
There  is   only  death  in  this  strangle-hold ; 

even  if  we  call  it  love  .   .   . 
The  mother  who  cares  too  much  for  her  child, 
Or  the  husband  for  his  wife, 
They  are  keeping  sheltered  and  confined  what 

should  be  free  and  hardy,  toughened  for 

battle ! 

**Nay,  there  is  no  real  love  in  this  binding: 

It  is  more  often  a  sense  of  waste  and  futility, 

And  a  fierce  bickering  and  quarreling  .    .    . 

Shake  free! 

Know  love  in  freedom:  know  love  in  separa- 
tion: 

Give  the  soul  its  own  self  to  support  it,  and 
take  off  your  arms ! 

Do  honour  to  the  divinity  of  another  human 
being 

By  trusting  its  power  to  go  alone." 

The  nervous  person  does  not  present  a  well- 
rounded  life;  on  the  contrary,  the  outline  of  his 
development  will  show  an  indentation  reaching  to 
childhood.    During  an  analysis  the  curve  down- 

115 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

ward  should  be  lifted,  gradually  filling  out  to  a 
well-adjusted  line,  which,  however,  must  be  ef- 
fected by  the  patient  himseK,  as  he  sees  the  dif- 
ficulty to  be  overcome  and  marks  the  weak  spot  in 
his  development.  The  defence  reaction  which  a 
person  has  used  to  protect  his  sensitive  make-up 
is  the  attempt  at  defence  by  reacting  with  some 
manner  of  compensation  to  himself  against  the 
threatening  danger.  When  a  child  is  forced  to 
obey  unreasonable  wishes  of  those  in  authority — 
parents  or  teacher — he,  by  resisting  all  authority, 
defends  himself  from  the  threatened  destruction 
of  the  ^*  something  within  him  that  wants  to 
^row''  and  which  may  be  called  character.  Such 
resistance  is  called  negativism,  and  you  may  be 
very  sure  sometime  in  the  life  of  that  individual 
there  has  been  an  unwise,  over-exacting  authority. 


DEFENSIVE   SPEECH  AND  SILENCE 

Another  instance  of  defence  reaction  is  seen  in 
aphasia,  when  a  person  cannot  use  the  right  words 
to  express  his  thoughts  and  apparently  loses  con- 
trol of  speech.  In  the  unconscious  there  is  a 
secret  which  the  aphasia  victim  is  afraid  of  be- 
traying, and  he  guards  it  by  using  inappropriate 
words.  A  more  detailed  description  of  such  cases 
will  be  given  in  a  later  work.  Again  we  see  the 
effort  of  self -protection  in  the  silent  person.  He 
uses  his  silence  as  a  defence  against  betrayal  of 

116 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

both  conscious  and  unconscious  wishes,  feeling 
dimly  their  presence  by  a  great  longing  and  lone- 
liness. He  really  does  not  know  why  he  cannot 
study  or  work  continuously  toward  a  goal  and  is 
dissatisfied,  abstracted  and  silent.  Weak  intel- 
lectual power  frequently  sets  a  defence  reaction 
of  extreme  care  about  the  personal  appearance. 
A  deformity  or  crippled  condition,  too,  will  try  to 
compensate  with  a  defence  reaction  by  attempting 
to  appear  very  learned,  very  talented,  or  very 
vivacious.  The  person  affecting  such  learning  has 
little  or  no  knowledge,  but  a  mere  smattering  of 
words  and  catch  phrases.  The  talents  are  not  cul- 
tivated for  the  pure  enjoyment  of  an  emotional 
outlet  but  are  forced  and  lack  spontaneousness. 
Life  is  full  of  defence  reactions  by  which  the  in- 
dividual seeks  self-protection  from  uncomfortable 
situations. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  life  sometimes  starts 
amidst  surroundings  where  no  form  of  defence  is 
possible,  no  adaptation  can  be  effected,  and  the 
individual  life  submits  to  a  complete  surrender. 
A  stunted  growth  results  and  we  call  a  child  in 
such  circumstances  ^^ retarded.''  In  later  years 
there  may  be  wild  bursts  of  temper,  even  epilepsy, 
as  futile  efforts  toward  defence  reactions.  The 
life  which  surrenders,  rather  than  sets  up  a  de- 
fence reaction,  remains  exceedingly  infantile ;  the 
mind  makes  no  effort  to  reason  out  any  given  sit- 
uations or  decide  which  course  of  action  to  follow, 

117 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

and  becomes  very  indolent.  There  is  frequently 
thymus  trouble,  the  child  grows  very  large  and 
heavy,  face  full  and  with  high  colour;  but  he  is 
mentally  and  physically  lazy.  I  have  found  the 
cases  showing  thymus  trouble  which  have  been 
brought  to  me  for  analysis,  have  revealed  a  his- 
tory of  favouritism  and  petting.  Neither  the  child 
nor  the  parent  has  realized  that  fact,  and  the 
parents  are  sometimes  quite  indignant  with  the 
(questions  asked  in  taking  the  history  of  the  case, 
as  if  science  should  not  interfere  with  personal 
feelings. 

AN   IDOLIZED  DAUGHTEE 

One  case  was  a  woman  of  forty.  She  was  the 
youngest  of  five  children,  her  father  was  a  physi- 
cian. At  the  birth  of  the  fourth  boy,  the  mother 
was  very  ill  for  a  long  time ;  as  years  passed  and 
no  other  children  were  born  the  mother  longed  for 
a  daughter.  After  nine  years  of  waiting  the  fifth 
child,  a  daughter,  was  born.  This  child  received  a 
most  royal  welcome.  The  brothers  told  of  a  wil- 
ful, spoiled  child  who  was  never  corrected;  the 
boys  always  had  to  wait  upon  her  and  were  never 
allowed  to  make  a  sound  to  disturb  her.  They  con- 
sidered her  a  princess,  very  beautiful,  very  won- 
derful, and  she  accepted  their  worship  as  her 
right.  She  was  openly  told  how  pretty  she  was 
when  a  child.  (In  later  life  she  was  stout  and  her 
face  was  so  red,  full  and  heavy,  it  gave  her  a  look 

118 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

of  coarseness.)  The  whole  family  had  to  deny 
themselves  that  she  might  have  dainty  clothes. 
She  was  very  devoted  to  her  mother,  showed  no 
affection  for  her  father  and  was  only  moderately 
fond  of  her  brothers.  To  her  mother  she  was 
always  the  little  baby  girl,  and  she  reacted  as  such 
without  any  attempt  at  defence.  At  school  she 
was  not  popular  with  other  girls  as  she  wanted 
her  own  way  and  would  not  stand  contradic- 
tion. 

As  the  adolescent  age  passed  she  had  no  love 
affairs.  When  she  saw  her  former  schoolmates 
marrying,  she  was  sad,  and  built  up  imaginary 
romances  about  herself.  Her  brothers  married, 
but  she  was  too  irritable  to  keep  any  friends,  quar- 
relled with  every  one  but  her  mother.  There  was 
no  mental  retardation,  which  I  believe  to  be 
largely  due  to  the  intellectual  tastes  of  her  family. 
They  read  aloud  evenings ;  at  the  table  conversa- 
tion was  very  instructive  and  she  unconsciously 
absorbed  the  subjects  and  information  others 
were  talking  about.  After  the  mother's  death, 
when  our  patient  was  thirty  years  old,  the  family 
funds  were  very  low,  and  she  tried  to  live  with  her 
married  brothers.  No  one,  however,  could  show 
her  the  same  watchful,  tender  care  as  her  mother 
and  she  quarrelled  with  all  her  relatives.  As  she 
was  well-educated,  she  attempted  clerical  posi- 
tions, but  she  became  an  idiot  savcmt,  a  well-edu- 
cated woman,  very  wise  in  theory,  but  with  no 

119 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

more  knowledge  of  life  than  an  infant.  She  re- 
turned to  live  alone  in  her  father's  house,  found 
a  ready  market  for  the  family  heirlooms  of  furni- 
ture, silver  and  jewels  and  lived  on  the  proceeds 
until  they  were  all  sold. 

**Be  good  to  little  sister,"  were  the  mother's 
dying  words  to  her  sons,  and  when  they  found  the 
sister  with  an  empty  house  and  in  need,  they 
brought  her  food  and  money.  They  had  tried  to 
remonstrate  with  her  to  stop  the  sale  of  the  be- 
loved heirlooms  and  told  her  she  was  intensely 
selfish.  In  great  rage  she  had  ordered  them  out 
of  the  house.  When  the  end  of  the  sales  came,  she 
accepted  the  food  or  money  in  her  usual  way — as 
her  just  rights — but  she  set  up  some  hallucina- 
tions which  her  weak  personality  had  no  power 
to  overcome.  She  thought  that  all  food  or  money 
which  came  within  three  feet  of  her  was  poison 
to  any  one  else,  and  the  air  within  three  feet  of 
her  body  was  tainted  and  poisonous  to  others  to 
breathe,  showing  that  she  knew  in  her  unconscious 
she  had  lived  in  an  unhealthy  way.  She  could  not 
or  would  not  touch  metal  (she  had  sold  family 
silver  and  jewelry)  and  was  afraid  of  it.  She 
would  not  touch  her  foot  to  the  floor  and  said  it 
was  wrong  to  walk — she  refused  to  walk.  (She 
had  followed  wrong  paths  all  her  life.)  Very  late 
in  life  she  attempted  to  defend  herself  against 
further  ruin  by  the  mode  of  defence  which  out- 
wardly seemed  to  be  hallucinations. 

120 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

AN   IDOLIZED  SON 

Another  instance  of  a  life  being  clogged  and 
cloyed  with  sweetness  was  that  of  a  boy  bom  the 
eighth  child  after  seven  sisters.  The  parents  had 
quite  despaired  of  having  a  son,  and  the  mother 
said  she  really  felt  she  was  in  heaven  when  told 
her  child  was  a  boy.  She  never  tired  of  looking  at 
the  baby  son,  held  him  in  her  arms,  was  reluctant 
to  part  from  him,  even  to  lay  him  down  to  sleep. 
He  was  a  large,  heavj  child,  evidently  the  exces- 
sive fat  was  due  to  overfeeding.  His  mother  said 
that  as  a  young  child  he  tired  very  easily  and 
would  lie  down  when  the  others  were  playing.  He 
was  backward  in  walking  and  talking.  It  occurred 
to  me  the  child  was  kept  in  a  constant  state  of 
fatigue  from  so  much  handling  from  the  seven 
sisters  who  were  always  begging  to  hold  him,  and 
the  mother,  who  used  to  carry  him  to  a  vacant  part 
of  the  house  for  the  joy  of  holding  him  undis- 
turbed. He  was  made  the  pet  and  plaything  of  the 
family  until  his  eighth  year. 

His  mother  had  intended  teaching  him  herself, 
but  when  he  refused  to  learn  she  concluded  it  was 
because  she  did  not  know  how  to  teach  the  begin- 
ning of  the  ^*  three  R's"  and  sent  him  to  a  pri- 
mary school.  After  a  week  his  teacher  refused 
him  as  a  pupil,  he  would  make  no  effort  to  learn, 
she  said.  A  governess  was  engaged,  who  declared 
the  boy  was  deficient.    The  parents  became  thor- 

121 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

oughly  alarmed  and  carried  the  boy  from  one 
specialist  to  another  with  discouraging  results. 
Radiographs  of  the  brain  were  taken — no  dis- 
coveries were  made.  The  large,  overgrown  boy 
was  declared  to  be  of  low  mentality.  He  was  sent 
to  a  school  for  deficient  children  and  there  learned 
reading,  writing  and  some  simple  arithmetic. 
Then  he  was  again  taken  to  specialists  for  some 
encouraging  news,  but  the  mental  tests  placed  him 
as  a  child  of  six  years.  None  of  these  physicians 
had  any  knowledge  of  analytical  psychology, 
therefore  did  not  realize  the  great  importance  of 
'the  environment,  in  which  the  child  had  lived,  as 
being  the  chief  factor  in  promoting  or  retarding 
development. 

When  he  was  eleven  the  boy  was  sent  to  an- 
other home  among  older  children  and  to  a  boys' 
school  where  he  had  to  learn  to  take  his  place. 
He  was  shocked  at  the  boys'  rough  play;  they 
threw  chalk  and  erasers  at  each  other,  teased  him 
by  taking  his  lunch  and  hiding  his  cap.  When  told 
he  must  learn  to  defend  himself  among  boys,  he 
rose  to  the  occasion  and  in  a  month  the  boys  found 
they  got  the  worst  of  it  in  their  attempts  to  tease 
him.  He  learned  his  daily  lessons  and  the  intelli- 
gence increased  very  rapidly. 

DEFENCE   AGAINST   CHILDREN 

There  are  occasions  when  parents  should  set  up 
defence  reactions  against  their  children.    When, 

122 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

for  instance,  a  child,  more  especially  a  boy,  still 
lives  on  at  home  long  after  he  should  be  leading 
an  independent  existence  there  is  great  danger  of 
weakening  the  boy's  character.  He  will  wait  to 
be  forced  to  do  things  rather  than  act  on  his  own 
initiative.  It  is  so  nice  to  put  the  responsibility 
of  our  actions  on  some  one  else,  to  sleep  soundly 
until  called  and  to  have  some  one  make  us  go  to 
bed  when  we  are  too  lazy  to  make  the  effort  to 
get  up  and  go.  Laziness  is  an  inherent  quality  of 
animal  and  human  life,  and  should  not  be  con- 
fused with  the  need  of  rest  after  exertion.  Chil- 
dren who  have  had  too  much  waiting  on  by  fond 
parents  are  apt  to  become  what  we  call  ^  *  spoiled, ' ' 
which  is  indeed  a  descriptive  term. 

A  family  of  father  and  mother  with  three  sons 
and  a  daughter — all  grown — are  living  in  one 
apartment  of  eight  rooms  without  a  maid.  Such 
a  nervous  lot  of  people  are  they  that  one  wonders 
why  they  cannot  understand  the  need  of  separat- 
ing, and  yet  I  have  heard  the  parents  congratu- 
lated upon  being  able  to  have  the  children  all  with 
them.  One  son  is  morose  and  silent,  which  is  his 
defence  against  too  much  family,  another  son  is 
incorrigible,  never  home,  was  expelled  from  every 
school  and  will  not  stay  long  in  any  business. 
The  third  son  is  an  alcoholic  and  the  despair  of 
his  family,  the  daughter  is  very  irritable,  tearful 
and  apparently  a  delicate  girl.  The  father  is 
very  sarcastic  and  in  a  teasing  way  constantly 

123 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

annoys  his  family.  The  mother  is  a  woman  of 
artistic  tastes  which  she  has  no  opportunity  to 
gratify  because  of  her  large  family  cares.  The 
sons  would  like  to  live  away  but  feel  it  would 
break  up  the  home  if  all  left,  and  that  the  parents 
need  them ;  the  parents  hold  their  children  tightly 
and  yet  wish  the  sons  could  get  an  independent 
start. 

Another  illustration  is  a  family  of  eight  chil- 
dren :  one  alcoholic  son,  one  deficient  son,  one  in- 
corrigible son,  ^ve  daughters  quarrelling,  argu- 
ing and  generally  disturbing  one  another.  The 
parents  have  the  mistaken  idea  of  keeping  them 
all  home. 

Alcohol  is  a  favourite  method  of  defence 
against  cramped,  shut-in  conditions  of  life.  It  is 
used  by  those  who  need  greater  emotional  outlet ; 
and  the  would-be  alcoholic,  deprived  of  his  drink, 
may  seek  more  violent  methods  of  relief  in  crimi- 
nal doings.  Alcohol  is  both  a  compensation  and 
defence  and  a  safety  valve  for  the  blocked  libido. 

TICKLISHNESS 

The  sensation  of  ticklishness  is  another  defence 
reaction.  An  interesting  instance  of  that  was 
seen  in  the  case  of  a  fourteen-year-old  boy  who 
had  gone  the  rounds  of  clinics  and  was  shown  in 
the  Academy  of  Medicine  as  the  beginning  of  a 
Dementia  Praecox.    He  had  no  appetite.    He  was 

124 


DEFENCE  EEACTIONS 

said  to  have  various  hallucinations  of  the  sense  of 
sound;  he  heard  voices,  or  his  mother's  voice, 
calling  him;  he  also  had  hallucinations  of  taste, 
where  everything  tasted  salt ;  and  of  touch,  when 
every  night  he  had  the  most  terrible  sensation  of 
being  tickled  all  over  the  surface  of  his  skin.    It 
began  as  soon  as  he  went  to  bed.    He  could  not 
sleep  and  lay  with  his  knees  drawn  up  to  his  chin. 
He  was  declared  to  lack  emotional  reaction;  he 
lived  in  a  small  apartment  with  mother  and  older 
sister  and  brother  but  cared  for  none  of  them. 
Upon  investigating  the  environment,  I  found  the 
boy  was  sleeping  with  his  mother.    He  was  as  tall 
as  she,  five  feet,  six  inches.    I  ordered  a  couch 
prepared  for  him  by  the  open  windows  of  the 
dining-room.    The  mother  was  reluctant  to  try  it ; 
she  thought  it  unnecessary,  but  the  first  night  the 
boy  slept  instantly,  and  always  afterwards.    After 
a  few  months  of  analysis  the  hallucinations  en- 
tirely disappeared;  he  ate  heartily  and  returned 
to  school,  when  the  mother  concluded  it  was  not 
necessary  to  have  her  dining-room  used  as  a  sleep- 
ing room,  that  what  I  had  told  her  was  all  non- 
sense and  as  the  boy  was  well  he  could  just  as 
well  sleep  with  her  again.    She  told  him  not  to 
tell  me  about  changing  his  room.     He  did  not, 
but  he  came  to  me  with  the  same  pale  face  and 
thick,  glaring-looking  eyes.    The  day  for  his  next 
visit  his  mother  in  great  alarm  came  just  ahead 
of  him.    The  boy  had  not  eaten  for  two  days,  she 

125 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

said  he  could  keep  nothing  on  his  stomach.  After 
severe  questioning  as  to  what  had  happened  to 
cause  a  return  of  the  illness  she  confessed  with 
tears  what  she  had  done.  As  soon  as  he  slept 
alone  he  was  well  again  and  his  mother  was  con- 
vinced. 

DEFENCE  AGAINST  WORK 

Not  all  children  who  set  up  defence  reactions 
are  doing  so  for  their  betterment ;  they  may  serve 
as  an  excuse  to  avoid  some  unpleasant  task,  or  as 
an  excuse  for  laziness,  or  as  a  fear  of  conse- 
quences. An  untruthful  child  may  be  afraid  to 
tell  the  truth  for  fear  of  punishment.  I  have 
heard  parents  declare  the  trouble  with  their  son 
was  that  he  was  afraid  of  no  one,  and  had  no 
respect  for  authority.  In  the  latter  sentence  they 
hit  the  nail  on  the  head.  They  had  tried  to  instil 
fear  into  their  children's  hearts,  mistaking  fear 
for  respect,  and  they  had  succeeded.  The  child 
had  a  superabundance  of  energy  which  escaped  in 
mischievous  pranks  and  which  he  hid  by  fibbing  or 
any  way  he  could.  He  feared  them,  but  in  teach- 
ing him  fear  they  lost  his  respect.  He  saw  their 
weakness  and  errors,  and  began  to  steal.  They 
were  wealthy  and  lived  in  a  luxurious  home  but 
denied  the  boy  as  much  spending  money  as  he 
asked.  Of  course  the  boy  was  very  unreasonable 
and  wrong  to  want  to  begin  life  on  the  top  where 
the  father  stopped.    And  through  an  analysis  he 

126 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

had  to  learn  this.  In  this  case  the  father  was 
wise.  He  saw  the  boy  improving,  the  face  show- 
ing more  character,  with  better  application  to  his 
school  work,  so  concluded  it  would  be  very  desir- 
able to  understand  the  reasons  and  methods  of 
improvement  and  sought  to  learn  them.  He 
wanted  himself  analysed,  too,  thinking  it  rather  a 
joke,  as  he  only  wanted  to  know  what  I  had  taught 
the  boy.  When  told  he  could  not  understand  any 
one's  life  without  thoroughly  understanding  his 
own,  he  was  rather  incredulous  but  said  he  ^^  would 
try  it  for  three  months. '^  At  the  conclusion  of  the 
three  months  he  continued  until  six  months  had 
passed,  and  then  began  collecting  material  for  a 
book  which  he  would  entitle,  ^  ^  The  Explanation  of 
Human  Behaviour. '^  Like  so  many  people  who 
submit  to  a  psychoanalysis,  he  said,  *^If  only  I 
had  known  this  when  I  was  young ! ' ' 

Psychoanalysis  primarily  stands  for  truth  and 
teaches  the  necessity  for  truth,  strange  as  it  may 
seem  that  such  teaching  should  come  from  scien- 
tific rather  than  religious  following.  To  be  true 
to  ourselves  we  must  know  ourselves.  There  is 
nothing  new  about  that  idea,  it  was  taught 
twenty-three  hundred  years  ago  by  one  of  the 
wisest  of  ancient  Greek  philosophers.  If  we  thor- 
oughly understood  ourselves  we  would  not  blame 
our  children  for  their  actions  of  defence  against 
us,  our  patience  would  not  be  tried  by  such  seem- 
ing ingratitude,  and  we  would  know  better  how 

127 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  "tHE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

to  defend  ourselves  against  our  children.  The 
latter  is  a  vital  necessity  of  the  times  if  we  would 
live  on  and  secure  ourselves  against  too  great 
demands  of  our  adolescent  children,  or  our  spoiled 
and  too  much  petted  children,  or  our  misunder- 
stood and  unhappy  children.  As  the  father  above 
quoted  said :  he  knew  one  thing  for  sure,  which  his 
analysis  had  shown  him,  and  that  was,  he  would 
never  have  another  strike  in  his  factories,  al- 
though once  he  had  had  riots  with  attempts  at 
arson.  But  he  should  compel  them  all  to  go  to 
school,  young  and  old,  and  should  provide  means 
of  recreation  and  amusement,  for  his  employees 
were  much  like  children  who  must  be  trained  in 
the  right  direction  until  they  would  go  naturally. 
Many  children  must  be  kept  at  their  tasks  and 
education  until  after  their  adolescence,  and  it 
needs  a  firm  and  constant  pressure  to  overcome 
a  child's  unwillingness. 

Jerky  discipline  is  an  indication  of  nerves  or 
laziness  or  an  exhausted  libido  on  the  parent's 
part.  No  one  has  unlimited  power,  and  when 
tired  the  strong  character  stops  to  rest,  while  the 
weak  one  goes  on  beyond  his  or  her  endurance,  for 
reasons  usually  very  selfish.  It  becomes  a  form 
of  exhibitionism.  Excessive  giving,  where  one 
has  not  the  power  or  means  to  give,  is  another 
defence;  excessive  talking  is  also  used  uncon- 
sciously to  keep  away  unpleasant  thoughts.  Won- 
derful wisdom  is  contained  in  the  Biblical  admoni- 

128 


DEFENCE  REACTIONS 

tion  to  **  judge  not."  I  was  much  surprised  when 
a  soldier  from  the  battlefields  of  France,  in  an- 
swer to  my  efforts  to  brace  him  up  from  the  shock 
of  seeing  so  much  suffering,  wrote  that  the 
mental  anguish  a  soldier  suffered  going  into  battle 
was  not  so  great  as  that  of  a  child  when  misunder- 
stood by  his  elders.  The  soldier  is  going  ahead  to 
fight  for  what  he  knows  is  right,  but  the  child  is 
held  back  by  his  helplessness  in  the  face  of  what 
he  thinks  is  wrong. 


129 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PAEENT   COMPLEX 

A  COMPLEX  is  a  group  of  emotional  ideas,  or  ideas 
gathered  around  a  wish  that  is  too  painful  or  too 
unethical,  to  exist  in  conscious  thought.  It  domi- 
nates its  victim  with  a  ceaseless  urge,  a  condition 
which  is  popularly  called  ** nerves."  So  intimate 
a  part  of  an  individual  are  his  complexes,  that  it 
is  as  impossible  for  him  to  become  aware  of  them 
without  the  help  of  the  analytical  psychologist  as 
it  is  for  the  eye  to  see  itself  on  its  retina.  And 
as  we  have  recourse  to  an  oculist  to  have  the  de- 
fective vision  corrected  by  appropriate  lenses, 
so  when  the  family  situation  becomes  acutely 
troublesome,  the  same  sort  of  recourse  may  be  had 
to  the  analytical  psychologist,  to  correct  the  de- 
fects of  the  mental  vision. 

Because  these  ideas  constituting  the  complex 
are  unknown  they  have  all  the  more  power  over 
the  individual.  The  parent  complex  is  the  emo- 
tionally toned  group  of  ideas  which  the  child  in 
his  own  unconscious  mind  has  unintentionally  and 
unwittingly  formed  about  the  concept  of  father 
and  mother.  So  fundamental  and  so  all-impor- 
tant is  the  parent  complex,  formed  in  childhood 
but  persisting  into  adulthood,  that  in  many  cases 

130 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

the  adult  finds  himself  unable  to  live  his  own  inde- 
pendent existence,  and  is  plainly  seen  to  be  suffer- 
ing from  some  form  of  nervous  disorder.  Years 
of  experience  have  shown  that  the  chemical  action 
of  drugs  relieves  such  cases  only  temporarily. 

In  the  play  within  the  play  in  Hamlet,  when  the 
Duke  Gonzago  is  murdered.  King  Claudius  can 
sit  no  longer.  His  feelings  overcome  him  and  issue 
in  the  act  of  calling  '^ Lights,  lights !''  and  rushing 
from  the  room,  thus  fulfilling  Hamlet's  prophecy 
when  he  said : 

**The  play's  the  thing 
Wherein  I'll  catch  the  conscience  of  the  king." 

Emotional  actions  are  the  signs  of  the  complex 
but  are  not  the  complex.  The  ideas  around  which 
have  gathered  the  painful  emotions  are  lying  deep 
in  the  unconscious.  In  most  people  they  escape 
into  consciousness  only  occasionally,  showing 
themselves  as  a  sensitiveness  or  being  **sore  on" 
some  subject.  If  a  person  is  ^* touchy"  about 
some  topic,  he  shows  that  he  has  a  complex  con- 
nected with  it. 


CAUSE  OF   PAKENT   COMPLEX 

The  cause  of  the  complex  formed  about  the  idea 
of  the  parent  is  that  the  first  impressions  of  child- 
hood are  stamped  with  incredible  depth  on  a  mind 
which  is  in  some  respects  as  soft  and  plastic  as 

131 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

wax.    But  it  is  in  other  respects  to  be  compared 
not  with  wax,  which  does  not  grow,  but  with 
human  or  animal  tissue  which  does  grow,  magni- 
fying the  original  impression.    I  have  sometimes 
wondered  if  these  impressions  did  not  begin  at 
the  hour  of  birth,  as  in  the  case  of  the  child  who 
refused  to  nurse  his  mother,  but  would  nurse  from 
a  rubber  nipple  on  a  bottle.   Was  there  in  this  case 
a  too  vigorous  presentation  of  the  subject  at  the 
first  attempt  to  nurse?    Again,  a  newly-born  child 
being  laid  aside  a  long  time  before  his  first  bath, 
owing  to  the  critical  condition  of  his  mother,  was 
really  neglected  during  his  first  hours  of  life,  and 
all  his  later  life  he  had  the  feeling  of  being  un- 
loved until  his  marriage,  which  was  satisfying. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  possible  that  the  number 
and  weight  of  these  impressions  upon  a  child's 
mind  in  a  highly  organized  type  of  society  are  so 
great,  as  in  a  large  city  where  there  is  much  ex- 
citement  due   to   the   close   contact   with   many 
people,  that  the  natural  growth  of  the  child's  own 
nature  is  surcharged  by  too  frequent  demands  and 
impressions.    There  are  many  degrees  in  the  force 
and  liveliness  with  which  they  strike  on  the  mind, 
varying  from  the  soft  yielding  to  the  nearly  in- 
elastic mind,  which  later  will  suffer  less  from  his 
complexes.     In  these  early  and  impressionable 
years  the  child  has  thoughts  and  desires  which 
should  be  allowed  to  grow  to  the  best  advantage, 
cultivated,  pruned  and  trained  for  better  growth, 

132 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

but  not  with  the  mistaken  idea  that  training  con- 
sists in  mental  wrenching  this  way  and  that,  of 
beating  back  the  child^s  wishes  without  sympathy 
and  by  the  dominating  power  of  parent  or 
teacher. 

In  order  to  realize  the  true  situation,  we  have 
thus  to  keep  clearly  in  mind  the  impressions  which 
are  being  made  upon  the  child  ^s  mind  and  the 
growth  of  the  mind  itself,  which  shows  that  there 
is  an  innate  force  having  its  own  tendencies  in  its 
own  instinctive  directions.  If  this  individual  urge 
in  the  child,  which  craves  to  grow  its  own  way,  is 
allowed  to  develop  in  a  rationally  normal  manner 
with  only  enough  direction  to  make  it  conform  to 
social  living,  the  impressions  of  childhood, 
whether  they  be  unhappy  or  too  exciting,  will  be 
outgrown.  Much  as  it  may  shock  those  adults 
who  value  very  greatly  the  memories  of  child- 
hood, it  must  be  emphatically  stated  that  the  child- 
ish impressions  should  be  obliterated  so  that  the 
impressions  of  later  life  may  take  effect.  This 
does  not  mean  that  no  memories  should  survive, 
but  that  the  importance  of  the  early  impressions 
should  give  way  before  the  larger  values  of  the 
later  experiences.  The  persistence  of  the  early 
experience  continuing  unchanged  into  adulthood  is 
one  of  the  greatest  of  misfortunes  and  causes  the 
individual  to  have,  when  later  he  is  in  the  adult 
environment,  a  mode  of  thought,  a  pattern  of  re- 
action showing  childish  traits  which  ought  long 

133 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

ago  to  have  been  outgrown.  The  scar  on  a  young 
sapling  is  covered  year  by  year  with  a  fresh  coat- 
ing of  bark  and  finally  outwardly  effaced,  but  if 
the  development  of  growth  were  diagranmied,  the 
rings  of  growth  would  look  like  this : 


While  a  well-rounded  life  without  the  scar  would 
be  represented  by  a  number  of  concentric  perfect 
circles.  We  thus  come  to  realize  that  there  are 
two  different  types  of  people,  one  of  which  has  and 
the  other  which  has  not  been  subjected  in  child- 
hood to  impressions  which  were  too  strong  to 
allow  the  natural  tendencies  of  growth  to  be  fol- 
lowed. 

In  contrast  to  the  individuals  whose  minds  are 
essentially  infantile  are  those  who  have  developed 
a  real  adulthood,  in  character  as  well  as  physio- 
logically, and  cover  over  or  fill  out  the  deep  im- 
pressions of  childhood.  The  impressions  in  child- 
hood should  not  be  too  violent,  and  if  the  tender 
growth  of  the  child-life,  representing  a  something 

134 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

which  wants  to  grow  in  its  own  way,  meets  resist- 
ance and  positively  aggressive  opposition  it  cannot 
expand,  and  the  impressions  remain.  Although 
the  physical  body  may  grow,  the  soul  of  the  child 
is  held  fast,  and  the  retardation  or  complete  stop- 
page of  its  growth  forms  an  abnormal  condition 
which  from  this  starting-point  plays  a  greater  and 
greater  role  in  the  life  of  the  individual. 


MOTHER  LOVE 

As  all  life  grows  toward  the  sun,  which  fur- 
nishes warmth  and  energy,  so  does  the  child  grow 
toward  the  person  who  furnishes  him  with  warmth 
and  satisfaction  of  his  desires.  The  first  warmth 
is  given  by  the  mother  to  the  child  in  its  prenatal 
existence,  the  instinct  for  nutrition  is  satisfied  by 
her;  in  supplying  its  needs  the  emotional  life  of 
the  child  is  called  forth  and  in  that  early  time 
occur  the  beginnings  of  the  yearning  desire  we 
call  love.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  childhood 
which  is  made  so  attractive  by  the  sympathy  and 
devotion  of  the  mother  is  very  hard  to  leave! 
She  carefully  watches  the  material  wants,  her 
touch  is  gentle  and  caressing.  Always  she  ap- 
proaches with  adoring  looks  and  encouragement, 
soothing  injured  feelings  with  sweetest  tones  and 
encouragement.  There  is  established  the  most  in- 
timate relationship  between  mother  and  child — 
why  should  the  child  wish  to  grow  up  ?    How  many 

135 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

of  us  without  knowing  it  carry  the  infantile  pat- 
tern of  reaction  to  life,  and  the  weary  ones,  when 
suffering  is  great,  cry  out  from  the  heart : 

**  Backward,  turn  backward,  0  Time,  in  thy  flight, 
Make  me  a  child  again  just  for  tonight. 
Mother,  come  back  from  the  echoless  shore." 

Thus  these  emotional  feelings,  which  become  at- 
tached to  the  ungratified  ideas  and  wishes,  sink  to 
the  unconscious  and  form  what  we  call  the  *  *  com- 
plex'' and  there  the  libido  or  energy  is  used  to 
gratify  the  wishes  of  the  complex.  If  too  much  of 
the  libido  is  kept  with  these  complexes  in  the 
inner,  unknown  realms  of  the  unconscious  instead 
of  being  worked  off  naturally  on  an  external  world 
of  reality,  there  is  a  retardation  of  the  healthful 
adjustment  to  reality,  with  consequent  slowing  up 
of  energy,  and  with  ill  health,  unhappiness  and 
lack  of  ambition.  Such  patients  think  they  are 
blaming  every  one  but  themselves  for  their  fail- 
ures, v/hen  they  are  really  blaming  every  one  for 
not  being  parents  to  them.  The  emotions  which 
are  appropriate  to  childhood  are  fixed  or  made 
permanent,  and  the  emotions  appropriate  to  adult- 
hood are  never  experienced  at  all,  even  though  the 
patient  may  be  fifty  years  old. 

A  housewife's  complex 

The  complex,  although  crowded  out  of  con- 
sciousness, is  ever  struggling  for  expression.    It 

136 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

is  shown  in  the  jokes  and  attempts  at  humour, 
unexplained  forgetting,  absent-mindedness,  mis- 
takes in  speech  and  slips  of  the  tongue,  certain 
opinions,  moods,  dominant  traits  of  character  and 
the  phantasy- thinking  of  day-dreams.  The  pa- 
tient's conduct  and  feelings  are  all  determined  by 
the  nature  of  his  complexes.  The  night  dream 
contains  the  picture  of  the  complex,  but  as  the 
educated  mind  of  the  dreamer  meets  the  naked 
wishes  of  his  complexes  he  covers  them,  as  it  were, 
with  a  veil  of  symbolism — for  example:  a  pa- 
tient told  me  of  the  great  relief  she  felt  when  she 
smashed  a  goblet  against  the  bricks  of  her  chim- 
ney— *^My  husband  makes  me  just  wild  when  he 
comes  to  say  good-bye  on  a  Monday  morning,  in 
his  easy-going  way,  and  asks  what  I  am  going  to 
do  today  when  I  have  the  entire  house  to  restore 
from  Sunday  disorder ;  and  his  niece,  who  is  visit- 
ing us  and  has  made  much  of  the  disorder  with 
her  company,  remarks  what  a  lovely  time  she  is 
having  and  goes  off  to  her  dressmaker,  leaving 
me  to  do  all  the  work.  I  grabbed  up  the  goblet 
and  threw  it  with  all  my  might  against  the  stones 
of  the  fireplace  and  the  crash  gave  me  the  great- 
est relief.''  She  showed  her  unconscious  wish  to 
destroy  the  niece  but  symbolized  her  as  the  goblet. 
Our  patient  was  held  by  her  complexes  and  blamed 
her  husband  for  not  feeling  the  tender  solici- 
tude of  a  father  for  her,  instead  of  which  she 
should  have  accepted  her  housekeeping  as  her 

137 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

profession  and  been  proud  to  be  a  capable 
woman. 

The  family  complex  is  a  reiterated  story  of  our 
nursery  days  which  would  bore  us  to  death  if  we 
could  but  see  it  in  all  its  bread,  butter  and  jam 
realism,  but  it  is  for  most  of  us  hopelessly  dis- 
guised in  symbolism,  so  that  we  cannot  see  it  as 
it  really  is.  It  goes,  back  to  the  days  of  nursing  in 
babyhood  and  persists  into  adult  life.  There  is 
constantly  going  on  in  the  depths  of  the  uncon- 
scious the  fulfillment  of  our  unsatisfied  longings. 
The  unlovely  life  in  sordid  surroundings,  but  long- 
ing for  gaiety,  is  surrounded  in  the  unconscious 
by  music  and  dancing;  the  lonely  life,  in  the  un- 
conscious, seeks  love  and  would  be  revenged  on 
those  who  have  denied  it;  the  overburdened  life 
kills  and  destroys  those  who  have  imposed  the 
burden;  poverty  is  surrounded  by  riches. 

To  the  elaboration  of  these  phantasies  the 
major  part  of  the  libido  is  directed,  and  when  too 
much  of  the  emotional  life  is  held  in  the  family 
ties,  the  technical  term  ^ incest  phantasy'^  is  ap- 
plied to  it,  with  the  sickening  horror  of  life  so 
well  told  in  the  Greek  play  of  ^^CEdipus''  written 
by  Sophocles,  and  also  given  expression  in  the 
group  classifications  of  Totemism,  which  enables 
the  tribes  to  lead  an  exogamous  existence.  From 
time  immemorial  the  instinctive  aim  of  life  to  keep 
its  energy  free  for  its  own  creative  purposes  has 
not  changed,  but  along  with  it  has  existed  also 

138 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

the  desire  to  remain  in  childhood,  a  trend  which 
we  find  in  the  very  primitive  tribes.  To  overcome 
it,  the  custom  was  practised  of  taking  away  a  boy 
at  the  age  of  puberty  from  the  mother  for  a  cer- 
tain period.  By  very  primitive  people  in  the  early 
cultural  stages  the  youth  was  instructed  in  the 
rites  of  magic  believed  by  his  tribe  to  appease 
the  mysterious  powers  of  nature  which  control 
life  and  its  necessities.  This  custom  has  de- 
scended to  us  in  the  form  of  Confirmation  in  the 
Church,  when  youth  is  supposed  to  assume  re- 
sponsibility and  the  sponsors  are  no  longer  an- 
swerable for  consequences. 

THE   INCEST  PHANTASY 

We  must  call  special  attention  to  the  term  *' in- 
cest phantasy''  which  is  the  form  of  phantasy- 
thinking  holding  so  much  of  the  libido  in  the  uncon- 
scious situations  where  the  individual  is  unable 
to  sacrifice  the  infantile  wish  and  where  the 
further  development  of  energy  toward  objects 
outside  of  the  family  is  prevented.  The  interests, 
conversation,  affections  and  wishes  of  a  person 
with  a  strong  incest  phantasy  remain,  as  it  were, 
glued  to  the  family,  and  as  one  cannot  marry 
one's  own  family  the  whole  aim  of  nature  is  lost 
sight  of  and  morbid  and  abnormal  phenomena  ap- 
pear. A  woman  of  thirty-six  came  for  analysis, 
saying  she  suffered  unbearably  from  her  subcon- 

139 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEEYOUS  CHILD 

scious.  It  was  never  quite  clear  what  she  meant 
by  her  **  subconscious. '  *  She  was  married  and 
had  several  children.  Her  thin,  nervous-looking 
face  indicated  a  form  of  melancholia ;  her  history 
showed  a  father  image  held  always  in  her  mind  as 
the  ideal  man.  He  had  been  kind,  thoughtful, 
lovely  and  sympathetic,  and  life  with  him  was 
always  happy,  yet  he  had  committed  suicide. 

Her  husband,  on  the  contrary,  expected  so  much 
of  her,  she  said,  and  never  understood  her 
troubles.  She  worked  so  hard  on  their  small  in- 
come and  talked  much  of  her  many  sacrifices. 
Her  analysis,  however,  showed  that  she  was  un- 
willing to  make  the  one  sacrifice  necessary,  the 
sacrifice  of  her  childhood  wish.  Her  weak  father 
could  not  face  difficulties  and  left  the  world ;  her 
mother  had  to  bear  the  burdens.  The  patient  had 
desired  a  musical  education,  but  the  father  had 
not  sufficient  funds  and  would  not  or,  as  she 
thought,  could  not  work.  He  was  so  lovely,  she 
said,  she  did  not  mind  going  without  the  musical 
education. 

But  the  question  was  put  to  the  patient,  **What 
would  life  be  if  every  one  was  so  lovely  T'  The 
obvious  answer  was,  *^  We  would  lead  a  vegetative 
existence,  the  libido  would  be  stored  in  each  one; 
death  and  annihilation  would  result.''  At  the 
present  time  she  has  worked  out  her  problems  and 
is  very  appreciative  of  her  home,  children  and  the 
sterling  character  of  her  husband.    In  her  uncon- 

140 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

scious  she  was  living  over  her  past  life,  taking  her 
mother's  place  and  trying  to  make  her  father 
happy  so  that  he  would  not  commit  suicide. 

When  the  daughter  imagines  herself  taking  the 
mother 's  place,  what  does  it  really  mean  ?  In  the 
unconscious  thought  she  will  be  her  father 's  wife. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  she  appears  pale,  has 
nausea,  indigestion  and  insomnia?  And  the  son 
will  have  the  same  unconscious  thought  if  the 
mother  is  too  sweet  and  indulgent,  and  becomes 
his  ideal  of  the  dearest  and  loveliest  woman. 
Thus  we  see  exactly  how  it  is  that  the  personality 
of  the  parents  plays  a  most  important  part  among 
the  influences  of  childhood. 

If  the  parents  cannot  give  their  offspring  the 
proper  environment  necessary  to  start  a  vigorous 
life,  the  chances  are  that  the  child  will  reach  vears 
of  maturity  still  wishing  and  seeking  uncon- 
sciously the  ideal  parent.  In  every  woman  he 
meets,  the  boy  will  look  for  the  qualities  he  thinks 
the  ideal  should  possess.  If  his  mother  has  been 
too  exacting,  irritable  from  troubles  the  nature  of 
which  the  child  cannot  understand,  neglectful  of 
home  and  children  from  her  own  lack  of  mental 
growth,  all  the  more  will  the  boy  seek  the  mother 
image  in  all  women  and  particularly  in  the  woman 
he  marries. 

The  mother  image  is  the  mother  pattern;  this 
is  the  pattern  which  his  experience  of  his  own 
mother  leads  him  to  form.    What  he  finds  good  in 

141 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

her  he  takes  as  part  of  the  pattern  for  the  mother 
he  wants  for  his  own  children,  and  as  he  wants  his 
own  children  to  have  all  the  good  he  may  have 
missed  in  his  own  childhood,  he  takes  the  oppo- 
sites  of  what  bad  or  inferior  qualities  he  may  have 
found  in  his  mother  and  adds  them  to  the  already 
too  exacting  specifications.  When  he  finds  a  girl 
who  resembles  his  mother  in  any  particular,  his 
instinctive  desire  for  love  goes  out  to  her  and,  if 
he  be  of  a  certain  neurotic  temperament,  his  in- 
stincts totally  blind  him  to  the  qualities  which  his 
chosen  one  does  not  possess  to  make  her  the  exact 
replica  of  his  pattern,  and  the  intellectual  realiza- 
tion of  these  differences  come  later  with  a  shock. 
The  strong  man  accepts  his  mother  as  merely 
human,  made  of  strength  and  weakness,  and  has 
consideration  for  her  declining  years ;  he  will  have 
the  courage  of  his  convictions,  the  curve  of  his  de- 
velopment will  be  well-rounded,  no  indentations 
going  back  to  childhood  ideals. 

The  daughter,  with  her  different  biological  aim, 
is  likewise  seeking  her  ideals.  As  the  aim  of  the 
male  is  to  go  forth  to  find  some  one  to  cover  and 
to  give  to,  so  the  female  shows  her  instinctive 
desire  to  be  covered  and  to  receive.  Woman's  suf- 
frage may  be  a  tacit  admission  on  the  part  of  man- 
kind that  he  has  not  done  the  protecting  as  well 
as  he  should.  A  perfect  protection  would  have 
left  no  desire  among  women  to  share  in  that  func- 
tion, a  condition  which  from  a  biological  point  of 

142 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

view,  might  be  called  a  perversion  of  the  natural 
aim.  Just  because  man  has  failed  to  perform  his 
duty  he  has  called  upon  women  to  help  him,  he  has 
taken  the  work  from  her  hands ;  for  he  makes  her 
bread,  her  jams,  jellies  and  preserves,  he  spins  her 
cloth,  makes  her  dresses,  her  hats,  he  makes  her 
fashions  of  dress  and  makes  her  pay  as  exorbi- 
tantly for  her  tight  and  narrow  skirts  and  scanty 
waists  as  if  she  wore  the  voluminous  skirts  of 
years  ago.  He  thus  to  a  certain  degree  causes  the 
woman  to  become  perverted,  as  biologically  her 
only  function  is  to  be  protected  in  the  home  and 
not  go  out  into  the  world  and  take  a  part  in  pro- 
tecting it. 

THE   FEMININE   IDEAIi 

When  very  young  the  baby  girl  shows  her  pref- 
erence for  masculine  strength.  She  finds  great 
comfort  in  the  support  of  a  pair  of  strong  arms 
which  lift  her  up  and  hold  her.  A  boy  would 
wriggle  and  squirm  to  get  away.  All  her  life  she 
looks  for  strength  in  her  ideal  man,  physical 
strength,  strength  of  purpose,  intellectual 
strength,  according  to  whatever  have  been  the 
early  influences  that  have  moulded  her  character. 
In  trying  to  dissolve  a  strong  father  complex  in 
a  young  woman  unhappily  married,  I  found  the 
father  image  had  loomed  large  before  the  girl 
when  she  became  engaged.  She  confessed  that 
her  husband  was  a  great  disappointment.    He  was 

143 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

so  different  from  her  father  who  was  so  comfort- 
able to  have  around;  but  her  husband  kept  the 
house  in  disorder,  threw  newspapers  everywhere, 
cigar  ashes  in  everything.  Upstairs  their  room 
was  topsy-turvy  if  he  was  in  it  for  a  few  minutes ; 
he  was  so  rough  in  his  salutations  when  he  came 
home,  picked  her  up  and  kissed  her  three  or  four 
times,  which  was,  most  trying  when  she  was  en- 
deavouring to  look  her  best  for  the  dinner  table. 
Father  was  so  different,  he  was  so  neat  and  quiet, 
his  chiffonier  was  in  order  and  Jack's  was  tossed 
about.  After  dinner  father  sat  down  by  the  fire, 
with  his  cigar  and  newspaper,  an  essential  factor 
of  the  home  circle.  She  understood  later  that  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth  demanded  action,  and  that 
when  her  father  was  young  he  was  not  the  sedate 
man  she  knew.  She  was  trying  to  be  a  wife  after 
the  model  of  her  aged  mother. 

A  woman  of  thirty-eight  went  quite  to  pieces 
after  her  husband's  death  when  she  had  to  attend 
stockholders '  meetings,  consult  lawyers  about  the 
details  of  property  management,  and  keep  bank 
accounts.  She  found  mankind  unresponsive  and 
could  not  understand  why  she  was  expected  to 
protect  her  own  business  interests.  Large  bills 
were  sent  to  her  for  services  rendered.  Again, 
the  father  complex  prevented  the  self-reliance  she 
might  have  felt,  and  she  approached  every  man 
as  though  he  were  her  father  and  personally  in- 
terested in  her. 

144 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

Another  case  is  that  of  a  woman  over  forty 
years  of  age  whose  father  had  died  when  she  was 
a  child.  She  always  longed  for  masculine  strength 
to  lean  on.  When  four  years  old  she  had  been  ill, 
her  father  had  carried  her  in  his  arms,  an  indul- 
gence which  had  greatly  relieved  her  tired  little 
body  weakened  by  fever.  Ever  afterward  she 
longed,  when  tired,  for  strong  arms  to  support 
her;  the  touch  of  a  coat  sleeve  against  her  face 
satisfied  a  deep  yearning  in  her  soul.  When  she 
married  she  told  her  husband  how  much  she  had 
longed  for  and  missed  her  father,  and  the  hus- 
band, who  was  ten  years  older,  promised  to  be 
both  father  and  husband  to  her.  This  promise 
comforted  her  greatly,  and  the  ever-ready  coat 
sleeve,  with  strong  arms  to  support  seemed  to  be 
the  end  of  her  longings.  However,  the  coat  sleeve 
and  the  masculine  strength  were  the  beginning  of 
troubles.  She  was  constantly  ill,  refused  to  sleep 
in  the  same  room  with  hcT  husband,  declared  con- 
^*ugal  intimacy  was  the  curse  of  married  life.  Yet 
no  glimmering  of  the  truth  came  to  either  of  them, 
that  when  the  husband  promised  to  be  both  hus- 
band and  father,  he  was  causing  his  wife  to  put 
j;wo  persons  in  one,  so  that  she  married  her  own 
father,  in  exactly  the  way  that  many  girls  would 
like  to  do.  In  her  dreams  she  saw  her  father 
wearing  her  husband's  clothes,  sitting  on  her 
front  door  steps,  always  waiting  for  her,  until  she 
finally  realized  how  impossible  to  have  both  a 

145 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHILD 

father  and  a  husband  in  one,  and  that  she  no 
longer  needed  a  father. 

Who  has  not  seen  the  joy  of  the  daughter  in 
taking  charge  of  the  home  when  mother  is  away? 
She  sits  at  the  head  of  the  table,  orders  or  pre- 
pares father's  favourite  dishes,  puts  on  the  most 
becoming  gown,  and  feels  very  grown  up  in  enter- 
taining ]^is  friends.  The  son  also  has  his  diffi- 
culties with  a  mother  complex  when  he  expects 
his  wife  to  be  as  careful  and  considerate  of  him 
as  his  mother  was,  and  he  feels  that  he  is  not 
understood  or  appreciated  when  he  finds  his  wife 
is  expecting  the  same  understanding  from  him. 
When  the  parent  dies  before  the  birth  of  a  child, 
or  in  the  case  of  an  adopted  child,  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult for  the  child  to  separate  the  actual  parent 
from  the  wife  or  husband,  for  the  child  who  has 
never  known  a  parent's  love  longs  for  it  intensely, 
even  after  years  of  maturity,  and  feels  starved 
for  affection.  An  ideal  of  the  perfect  parent  is 
held  and  the  realization  of  it  constantly  sought 
until  some  soul-satisfying  situation  is  met. 


OTHER   COMPLEXES 

While  each  life  must  struggle  with  its  com- 
plexes, and  no  one  escapes  them,  it  is  only  when 
the  conscious  life  is  strong  and  full  of  interests 
that  we  do  not  suffer  from  the  effects  upon  our 
energy.    As  we  have  said,  these  complexes  are 

146 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

not  confined  to  the  family  group  but  extend  in 
various  directions,  seizing  upon  unsatisfied  de- 
sires that  are  unknown  to  the  person.  Our  pa- 
tience is  tried  by  the  individual  unable  to  adjust 
his  complexes.  His  aims  are  apparently  selfish, 
he  is  sensitive  and  peevish,  takes  offence  on  the 
slightest  provocation,  is  oftentimes  a  woman- 
hater  and  runs  away  from  feminine  approach  ex- 
cept the  beloved  mother  and  sister,  and  vice  versa, 
is  easily  annoyed  by  children  except  those  with  the 
same  family  ties.  A  person  closely  bound  by  his 
complexes  is  dubbed  a  ^^  crank  "  and  woe  to  the 
family  or  social  organization  of  which  he  is  a 
member.  He  will  narrow  life  to  a  ^^dog  in  the 
manger"  principle,  he  cannot  fill  his  surround- 
ings himself,  but  no  one  is  allowed  near  enough 
to  disturb  or  interfere  with  his  wishes.  In  those 
poor  infantile  souls  generosity  exists  only  in 
spots.  They  lead  what  we  call  a  *  ^narcissistic" 
existence.  Such  a  person  is  too  much  in  love  with 
himself  to  appreciate  another  person's  view- 
point ;  the  manifestations  of  their  unconscious  are 
most  unlovely,  being  spells  of  temper,  depressions, 
or  ^^ nerves"  in  some  form.  Rarely  do  they  give 
where  they  cannot  share  the  benefits,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  can  only  give  to  the  mother  or  mother- 
substitute,  because  from  her  they  reap  such  large 
returns.  Verily,  in  these  days,  with  millions  of 
orphaned  and  homeless  children,  we  need  to  turn 
to  our  Bibles  for  counsel  and  guidance  to  help  free 

147 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

ourselves  from  our  complexes,  if  we  are  too 
prejudiced  to  seek  more  modem  methods,  and 
open  our  hearts  and  homes  to  the  children,  **for 
of  such  is  the  kingdom/'  I  have  been  surprised 
to  see  people  I  had  hitherto  respected,  turn  away 
from  the  nervous  child  with  condemnation,  no 
charity,  faith  or  hope,  no  idea  of  rejoicing  in  the 
betterment  of  the  child  or  of  helping  with  intelli- 
gence, but  exhibiting  the  most  deplorable  igno- 
rance in  considering  the  nervous  child  as  a  men- 
ace to  peace,  and  great  selfishness  in  refusing  the 
slightest  sacrifice  to  help  restore  the  tired  child 
to  robust  health. 

The  complex  existing  in  the  unconscious 
thought  of  the  individual  is  symbolically  pictured 
or  concretely  expressed  in  the  dream  as  chains 
of  steel  that  bind  him.  **I  saw  a  man  in  a  coffin 
and  the  coffin  was  wrapped  with  chains  of  steel, 
the  man  was  barely  alive.  He  writhed  and 
twisted,  but  could  not  force  his  way  out  as  the 
chains  held  him.''  The  associations  of  sickness, 
death,  his  mother  in  a  coffin,  and  of  a  person  being 
linked  with  another  as  with  chains,  a  word  which 
has  been  used  to  describe  marriage,  showed  the 
analysis  to  be  that  the  patient  was  the  man  in  the 
coffin  (which  symbolized  the  mother)  and  that  he 
was  bound  to  her  memory  as  with  links  of  steel,  a 
power  he  could  not  break  but  which  could  be  re- 
moved by  another  person  if  the  patient  had  the 
self-control  to  wait  and  not  exhaust  himself  in 

148 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

constantly  showing  his  complexes  (writhing  and 
twisting).  The  unconscious  mother-hold  is  seen 
in  many  instances  of  the  old  life  (the  parent) 
clinging  to,  feeding  on  and  drawing  inspiration 
from  the  young  life  (the  child)  held  by  ties  of 
family. 

MOTHERS  WOOING  SONS 

Last  night  in  our  hotel  we  watched  the  dancing 
couples,  among  them  a  young  soldier  and  a  pe- 
culiar looking  woman.  Her  hair  was  auburn, 
much  curled  and  fluffed  around  her  face.  A  nar- 
row strip  of  black  velvet  high  up  around  her  neck, 
passed  directly  under  her  chin.  Rich  jewels  on 
hands  and  dress,  and  a  costume  modish  and  in 
perfect  form,  bespoke  wealth  and  refined  home 
surroundings.  Her  slender  figure  was  graceful, 
but  her  face  looked  queer  and  purplish.  As  she 
danced  a  pleased  expression  came.  Was  she  some 
genius,  we  wondered,  whose  curve  of  develop- 
ment had  been  so  uneven  that  she  showed  these 
results?  Just  then  an  old  lady  took  the  vacant 
chair  beside  me.  She  was  white-haired  and 
motherly.  **I  see  you  are  watching  them,''  she 
said.  **That  is  my  daughter  and  her  son.  They 
do  have  such  good  times  together.  But  he  has 
been  sick  and  still  has  no  appetite.  There,  they 
have  stopped  dancing,  I  must  go  and  see  that  he 
sits  down  to  rest.''  And  she  left  us.  The  mystery 
was  explained.    It  was  only  an  old  woman  trying 

149 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

to  look  young  and  remain  young  to  hold  her  son's 
love  and  attention,  which  should  have  been  given 
to  a  young  girl.  The  black  velvet  around  her 
throat,  high  up  under  her  chin,  marked  the  effort 
to  hide  the  soft  wrinkle  which  if  filled  out  makes 
the  double  chin.  But  the  son,  tall  and  good-look- 
ing as  he  stood  among  other  soldiers  in  the  ball- 
room, noticeably  lacked  their  enthusiasm ;  his  face 
was  dull,  hopeless  and  weak.  The  army  has  been 
sought  by  many  a  man  otherwise  unable  to  free 
himself  from  the  family  grasp  and  don'ts.  The 
mother  also  has  an  unconscious  to  reckon  with. 
If  she  only  knew  it,  what  suffering  she  would  be 
saved!  If  she  would  only  step  aside  and  let  the 
child  go  on  to  his  goal  she  would  see  him  turning 
back  to  her,  and  she  would  rejoice  in  his  glorious 
strength  of  manhood.  She  would  then  be  well  re- 
warded with  the  results  of  education  begun  under 
her  instruction,  and  he  would  complete  the  jour- 
ney from  adolescence  to  maturity. 

Another  case  of  the  disastrous  result  of  a 
strong  mother  complex  was  found  in  the  case  of  a 
twenty-two  year  old  boy  who,  in  an  unusual  fear 
of  the  number  thirteen,  symbolized  the  wish  to 
return  to  the  mother.  Such  a  horror  he  had  of 
the  number  that  when  a  post-office  money  order 
was  sent  him  by  his  family  on  the  Pacific  Coast, 
although  he  had  reached  his  last  cent,  when  he  saw 
the  sub-station  where  his  money  was  was  marked 
No.  13,  he  turned  away.    He  knew  no  one  to  whom 

150 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

to  apply  for  help;  I  happened  to  be  out  of  town 
for  two  days,  and  as  his  pocket  was  empty  he  was 
entirely  destitute  and  without  food  for  two  days, 
sleeping  on  park  benches,  seeking  shelter  in  a 
tunnelled  walk  when  it  rained. 

His  analysis  showed  many  curious  phases  of 
childhood,  especially  the  mistake  parents  make  in 
allowing  children  in  the  rooms  of  father  and 
mother.  He  was  an  only  child,  and  was  always 
brought  into  his  mother's  room  mornings  before 
she  was  up.  When  about  two  and  a  half  years  old 
he  went  into  his  mother's  room  one  morning  and 
played  around  the  bed  and  under  the  blankets, 
hopping  around  as  his  little  fox-terrier  dog  did. 
His  mother  was  disturbed  and  commanded  him 
to  be  quiet,  no  further  impression  remained  with 
her  but  the  young  man  never  forgot  it.  Whether 
he  imagined  it  or  experienced  it,  he  declared  he 
never  forgot  the  comfortable  feeling  of  being  so 
near  to  her.  The  father,  who  was  present  at  the 
time,  quickly  put  the  boy  out  as  being  too  noisy 
and  persistent  in  playing  around  the  mother.  An 
intense  dislike,  which  later  became  distrust,  for 
the  father  began.  The  boy  brooded  constantly, 
screamed  and  refused  to  be  away  from  his  mother. 

When  he  began  going  to  school  he  was  better 
until  the  adolescent  period  began,  when  study  and 
school  became  impossible.  He  was  silent  and  told 
no  one  his  thoughts.  Doctors  were  sought,  they 
removed  adenoids  and  tonsils,  had  his  teeth  cared 

151 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

for,  fitted  glasses  to  his  eyes,  not  knowing  what 
was  the  cause  of  the  boy's  trouble.  As  his  mother 
wrote  me,  in  giving  the  history :  *  *  I  left  my  hus- 
band, closed  the  house,  took  J.  away  to  the  sea- 
shore and  devoted  myself  to  him/'  It  was  the 
worst  thing  she  could  have  done ;  he  was  pale,  had 
no  appetite,  slept  badly;  nothing  improved  him. 
He  began  to  call  his  father  shocking  names,  re- 
fused to  talk,  stood  on  a  street  for  hours  looking 
the  picture  of  misery.  When  spoken  to  he  made 
obscene  answers.  The  only  person  he  was  at  all 
happy  with  was  his  grandfather. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  when  walking  with  his 
grandfather  and  another  old  man,  he  heard  a  ref- 
erence to  the  figure  thirteen  as  being  unlucky,  and 
then  began  his  horror  of  that  number.  He  was 
taken  the  rounds  of  nerve  specialists,  but  with 
no  improvement,  and  finally  sought  a  psycho- 
analysis with  a  physician  on  the  Pacific  coast  and 
for  the  first  time  improved.  He  began  school 
again  and  continued  through  high  school  and  two 
years  in  college,  then  came  another  nervous  break- 
down. The  boy  himself  by  that  time  recognized 
the  need  for  further  analysis,  and  felt  an  impera- 
tive urge  to  go  to  the  East.  He  was  sent  to  me. 
He  was  a  sad  looking  specimen  of  humanity, 
ragged,  unwashed,  uncombed.  Safety  pins  were 
used  instead  of  cuff  buttons.  His  shoes  looked 
water-soaked  and  were  cut  at  the  top  in  two  slits 
in  a  peculiar  manner.    Though  he  looked  to  be  a 

152 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

hopeless  case,  there  were  two  redeeming  features : 
his  clean-shaven  face  with  his  gold-rimmed  spec- 
tacles, and  fine  brown  hair,  falling  in  a  soft  wave 
over  his  forehead  in  the  maner  an  artist  affects, 
gave  an  air  of  hidden  refinement.  He  was  tall 
and  erect,  his  troubles  had  not  bowed  him  down 
as  is  usually  the  case  with  neurotics.  I  saw  then 
why  he  had  been  sent  for  an  analysis.  There  was 
resolution  in  those  square  shoulders,  and  an  in- 
tellect back  of  the  face  which  scowled  at  me  when 
I  asked  his  name.  Later  in  the  hour  there  came  a 
smile  which  was  encouraging. 

It  was  slow  work  to  reconstruct  a  life  which  had 
regressed  so  far  to  infantilism  that  he  would  not 
even  wash  and  dress  himself.  In  the  unconscious 
he  was  plainly  looking  for  a  mother,  as  his  own 
mother  had  not  been  satisfactory.  In  the  con- 
scious life  he  was  very  ill,  unable  to  think,  to  work 
or  care  for  himself,  or  even  to  get  a  room  to  sleep 
in.  He  spent  the  first  week  in  barrooms  day  and 
night,  sometimes  drinking,  as  alcohol  was  a  relief 
to  his  pent-up  emotions.  As  his  analysis  pro- 
ceeded he  brought  in  dreams  of  being  caught  in 
nets,  entangled  in  meshes,  like  a  spider's  web 
when  the  fly  is  invited  and  tempted  by  promise  of 
the  beauty  which  means  death.  The  analysis  of 
the  symbolism  of  the  fly  caught  in  the  spider's 
web  was  well  shown  when  the  mother  wrote  that 
when  she  saw  J.'s  nervous  condition  she  gave  up 
everything  and  devoted  herself  to  him.    He  eer- 

153 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

tainly  was  entangled.  As  he  improved,  his  first 
work  was  running  an  elevator  for  a  few  hours  a 
day.  Then  he  would  leave  suddenly  and  it  re- 
quired more  analysis  to  enable  him  to  get  a  new 
start.  Each  new  start  lasted  longer  until  he  was 
working  steadily,  the  desire  for  companionship 
came  and  alcoholism  stopped. 

Another  case  of  a  twenty-three  year  old  girl 
with  hysteria  was  sent  to  me  for  analysis.  She 
had  long  crying  spells,  complained  of  her  heart 
beating  so  hard,  she  was  sure  she  had  *^  heart 
disease,'^  as  she  called  it,  although  four  doctors 
had  told  her  she  had  not.  She  was  educated  for 
a  school  teacher  but  did  not  want  to  teach.  She 
was  an  only  child,  living  alone  with  her  mother, 
her  father  having  died  a  few  months  before  the 
patient's  trouble  began.  We  do  not  take  a  pa- 
tient's history  when  beginning  an  analysis,  ex- 
cept when  given  by  the  parents,  as  we  are  con- 
cerned only  with  the  part  of  it  impressed  on  the 
patient's  mind  which  contains  the  environment  af- 
fecting the  patient's  difficulties,  and  that  is 
shown  in  the  unconscious  thought  which  comes  to 
light  during  an  analysis.  This  girl  gave  her  first 
dream  phantasies  as  follows:  ''I  was  starting  on 
a  journey,  and  went  past  the  place  when  I  ought  to 
have  changed  cars.  Some  one  was  followmg  me 
everywhere  I  went,  a  man  and  a  woman,  I  was 
not  afraid  of  them,  hut  they  seemed  to  he  hiding 
every  time  I  looked  at  them  and  I  could  not  think 

154 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

why  I  could  not  get  rid  of  them,  so  I  hid  too,  and 
then  they  went  past  me  a/nd  it  was  our  minister 
and  his  tvife.  I  could  not  see  his  face,  hut  I  knew 
it  was  he.'' 

Without  giving  all  the  long  list  of  associations, 
I  may  say  that  the  analysis  showed  the  minister 
and  his  wife  to  be  the  father  and  mother  whose 
influence  she  could  not  get  rid  of,  or  in  other 
words,  her  own  childish  wishes  she  could  not  set 
aside,  and  did  not  recognize  until  she  hid  (was 
sick)  and  then  she  knew  that  her  childhood  had 
lasted  beyond  the  adolescent  age  {she  went  past 
the  station  when  she  ought  to  have  changed  cars). 
When  she  fancied  she  had  heart  trouble  she  went 
home  and  went  to  bed  for  a  month  and  then  she 
felt  better.  She  ended  the  conflict  of  her  desires 
by  giving  up  to  them  in  staying  in  bed. 

The  next  dream  showed  more  directly  the  cause 
of  her  fancied  heart  trouble.  She  dreamed  that 
she  had  killed  some  one.  She  saw  the  person  all 
covered  up  in  bed  and  could  not  see  the  face  but 
knew  she  was  the  murderer  and  would  have 
to  pay  for  it.  She  had  the  impression  that  the 
murdered  person  was  a  man.  We  know  the 
unconscious  thought  of  the  child  is  to  kill  any 
one  in  his  way.  When  asked  what  man  had 
interfered  with  her  wishes  she  answered  she 
had  had  nothing  to  do  with  any  man  but  her 
father ;  then  she  recalled  a  man  teacher  in  college 
who  was  very  strict  and  whom  she  disliked  in- 

155 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

tensely.  As  the  dream  contains  only  our  unrecog- 
nized problems  and  wishes,  it  was  evident  the 
teacher  could  not  be  the  man  of  her  dream,  but  he 
symbolized  another  person,  or  quality,  possessed 
by  some  one  who  interfered  with  her  wishes.  The 
distinctive  quality  of  a  teacher  is  superior  knowl- 
edge and  authority.  Who  had  been  the  person  in 
her  life  with  superior  knowledge  and  authority 
who  interfered  with  her  wishes  ?  I  suspected  the 
father  but  wanted  her  to  think  it  out.  She  began 
to  boast  that  no  one  could  make  her  do  what  she 
did  not  want  to  do ;  her  mother  had  learned  better 
than  to  ask  for  obedience.  *^How  about  your 
father  f  I  asked.  She  became  quiet  and  thought- 
ful. *  ^  He  tried  to  make  me  mind,  but  I  was  pretty 
bad.    Guess  I  worried  him  to  death  sometimes." 

That  was  the  moment  to  free  the  unconscious 
thought  that  she  had  killed  her  father,  of  which 
she  had  been  dreaming.  **What  did  your  father 
dieofr' 

She  answered  quickly,  ** Heart  disease,*'  and 
flashed  a  quick  look  of  intelligence  at  me. 

^*So  you  feel  that  you  killed  your  father  by 
your  wilfulness  and  wish  to  atone  for  it  by  suffer- 
ing from  the  same  disease  of  the  heart?" 

She  had  had  no  love  affairs.  No  emotional  out- 
let was  afforded  her  excepting  the  emotion  of 
hatred  toward  authority.  It  is  impossible  to 
overestimate  the  importance  of  the  fact  that  the 
images  in  the  dream  represent  the  dreamer  in  dif- 

156 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

ferent  phases  of  her  own  character.  For  instance, 
the  girl  dreams  that  her  father  is  lying  dead  be- 
fore her.  She  has  killed  him.  But  in  her  dream 
he  represents  herself,  and  she  feels  she  ought  to 
kill  herself  as  a  retribution  for  having  killed  him 
in  waking  life,  not  really,  but  metaphorically,  by 
making  him  so  unhappy  that  she  broke  his  heart. 
In  the  dream  she  hnew  she  would  have  to  pay  for 
it,  the  destructive  hatred  would  destroy  her,  but 
thus  would  she  atone  for  her  father's  death  and 
be  true  to  him.  What  a  strong  father  complex  held 
that  girl !  In  her  we  have  an  example  of  the  split- 
ting of  the  libido  ^  and  perhaps  the  beginnings  of 
a  Dementia  Praecox.  Her  analysis  was  not  con- 
tinued. She  tried  several  other  physicians  for  a 
diagnosis  of  heart  trouble  and  then  returned  to 
the  town  of  her  birth. 

The  cause  of  unhappiness  in  married  life  seems 
possibly  a  topic  far  removed  from  the  character 
formation  of  the  child,  who  is  commonly  believed 
to  know  nothing  about  it.  In  a  book  devoted  to 
the  nervous  child,  why  say  so  much  about  marital 
unhappiness?  Because  both  the  happiness  of  the 
parents  and  of  the  child  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later  are  dependent  upon  the  same  thing.  The 
usual  relation  between  the  healthy  mother  and 
child  is  so  idyllic,  and  the  later  picture  of  unhappy 
married  life  with  ill  health  and  misery  is  so  hell- 
ish, that  many  have  wondered  where  began  the 

1  See  page  82. 

157 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

little  rift  within  the  lute  after  the  ecstasy  of  the 
wedding  day  that  could  cause  so  great  discord, 
like  sweet  bells  jangled  out  of  tune  and  harsh. 
But  never  before  the  present  age  has  the  cause 
been  searched  for  on  scientific  grounds.  People 
have  been  called  foolish  as  though  they  were  wil- 
fully being  unhappy.  A  great  many  opinions  and 
beliefs  are  given  that  have  never  been  adequately 
tested.  We  have  jumped  to  conclusions,  we  have 
been  impatient  for  results. 


THINKING  vs.   IMAGINING 

We  do  not  use  our  thoughts  and  imaginations 
properly.  The  words  *^  thinking ''  and  *  imagin- 
ing''  are  generally  used  very  loosely  and  often 
lead  to  confusion.  Thinking  is  opposed  to  imag- 
inative construction,  thinking  means  judging  and 
reasoning  and  asking,  and  supposing  according  to 
conception,  and  forming  and  testing  of  hypothe- 
ses. Imagining  means  the  combination  of  images 
in  new  forms.  Whoever  has  tried  to  make  peace 
between  unhappily  married  people  will  readily  see 
what  a  failure  in  thinking  the  two  ill-mated  people 
are  guilty  of,  and  what  extravagances  in  imagin- 
ing. Each  one  expects  the  other  to  do  the  think- 
ing, and  then  violently  contradicts  and  resists  it 
in  trying  to  represent  themselves  each  to  the  other 
as  being  the  injured  party.  How  many  men  com- 
ing home  from  their  club  or  other  evening's  recre- 

158 


THE  PARENT  COMPLEX 

ation  could  feelingly  re-echo  Burns'  lines  from 
Tarn  O'Shanter: 

**  Where  sits  our  sulky,  sullen  dame 
Gathering  her  brows  like  gathering  storm 
Nursing  her  wrath  to  keep  it  warm." 
and  do  not  understand  the  suffering  in  the  heart- 
ache of  the  **dame''  who  is  looking  for  fatherly 
attributes  in  her  husband,  while  he  is  expecting 
the  mother  indulgence  from  her.    He  rather  has 
the  right  on  his  side,  and  while  he  seeks  recreation 
she  should  also  re-create  herself.    How?    Well,  as 
she  must  eat  and  sleep  for  her  own  re-creation,  so 
should  she  have  her  own  interests  for  her  own 
mental  and  psychic  development. 

When  the  daughter  marries  (and  this  applies 
equally  to  the  son),  in  order  to  begin  life  as  is  gen- 
erally thought,  it  is  usually  to  continue  life  with 
the  ideal  mate  who,  in  the  unconscious,  is  a  com- 
bination of  father  and  husband.  There  is  no  moral 
reasoning  about  marriage  and  its  expectations, 
but  only  an  inexperienced  imagination  in  mental 
pictures  from  past  wishes.  When  reality  is  found 
to  be  different  from  those  pictures  of  imagination, 
the  reality  is  not  seen  but  only  the  vacancy  where 
the  realization  of  infantile  wishes  was  expected 
to  be  found.  The  companionship  in  the  new  per- 
sonality of  the  husband  is  perplexing  to  the 
** child-wife''  no  matter  what  her  age  may  be. 
Dickens  shows  her  in  the  character  of  Dora  in 
David  Copperfield. 

159 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BURIED  EMOTIONS 

To  the  uninitiated  parent  it  often  seems  that  the 
child  is  acting  from  *^pure  cussedness''  if  he 
neglects  his  work  or  seeks  to  escape  from  au- 
thority. The  destructive  emotions  of  fear  and 
anger,  about  whose  specific  effects  upon  the  body 
we  are  now  learning  from  medical  researches,^ 
do  not  in  the  child  mean  the  same  as  they  do  in  the 
adult.  The  **pure  cussedness^'  of  the  child  may 
be  quite  a  different  affair  from  that  of  the  adult. 
The  child,  in  his  actions  which  seem  to  show  these 
emotions,  is  expressing  his  desire  to  grow  both 
physically  and  mentally,  while  the  adult  fre- 
quently in  the  same  emotions  is  manifesting  his 
unconscious  desire  not  to  grow.  The  child  knows 
that  if  he  steals  a  cake  from  the  pantry  he  is 
breaking  mother's  rules  of  conduct,  which  are 
made  not  to  prevent  him  from  growing,  but  for 
another  purpose.  He  has  enjoyed  the  cake,  and 
has  done  nothing  retrogressive  except  to  displease 
mother,  who  in  many  instances  would  be  more 
pleased  than  displeased  if  she  but  comprehended, 
because  in  getting  sweets  from  mother  he  is  pay- 
ing her  the  highest  compliment  he  can. 

1  Cannon :  Bodily  Changes  in  Pain,  Hunger,  Fear  and  Rage. 

160 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

The  perversity  of  the  adult,  however,  is  quite  a 
different  matter.  In  breaking  laws  which  he  is 
himself  supposed  to  have  had  a  share  in  making, 
he  is  going  contrary  to  the  rational  side  of  his 
nature  which  inevitably  must  have  had  more  de- 
velopment than  the  child's.  The  act  of  the  crimi- 
nal is  a  breaking  out  of  emotions  that  have  been 
unfortunately  buried  in  his  unconscious.  The  ob- 
structions to  the  growth  and  proper  freeing  of 
the  libido  are  seen  in  many  forms  of  nervous  dis- 
orders. The  lack  of  ability  on  the  part  of  such 
patients  to  drive  their  own  libido,  resulting  in 
their  being  themselves  run  away  with,  is  seen  in 
the  haunting  fear  characteristic  of  the  anxiety 
neurosis.  A  fear  of  being  a  coward,  in  a  patient 
who  is  really  a  strong,  self-reliant  character;  a 
fear  of  losing  hair  when  the  patient  has  a  thick 
growth  of  hair  on  a  healthy  scalp ;  a  fear  of  drop- 
ping dead  when  he  is  a  remarkably  healthy  per- 
son, all  indicate  a  repression  of  the  libido.  The 
buried  emotions  have  caused  a  fear  in  such  a  per- 
son *s  soul  that  he  is  inadequate  normally  to 
supply  the  demands  of  the  most  vital  nature.  The 
emotions  being  buried  in  the  unconscious  are  un- 
able to  follow  the  path  of  the  libido  as  it  seeks  to 
turn  from  its  source  to  fulfil  its  function  in  the 
world.  It  perforce  turns  back  to  where  the  light 
and  fire  burn  for  it. 

Thus  begin  the  nervous  and  mental  disorders 
which  develop  in  later  life  as  the  demands  and  dif- 

161 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

ficulties  increase.  In  order  better  to  understand 
the  subject  it  will  be  necessary  to  look  from  the 
modern  analytic  viewpoint  to  the  exact  nature  of 
the  emotions.  As  the  etymology  of  the  word 
e-motion  shows,  the  emotions  are  a  moving  out- 
ward. Nature  intended  the  libido  eventually  to 
gain  its  satisfaction  by  an  outward  going  activity 
from  the  individual,  which  would  produce  a  result 
of  some  change  in  the  external  world  of  real 
things,  and  only  incidentally  and  indirectly  a  re- 
ciprocal or  retroactive  change  in  the  organism  it- 
self. In  recalling  one's  acquaintances  one  can 
almost  always  say  quite  definitely  whether  any 
given  person  belongs  in  that  class  of  people  who 
get  their  satisfactions  from  external  acts  or  in- 
ternal activities  or  thoughts.  William  James  has 
divided  people  into  two  classes,  tough-minded  and 
tender-minded.  Tender-minded  people  get  their 
satisfaction  from  internal  effects.  Similarly,  na- 
ture has  designed  us  to  be  primarily  tough-minded 
for  she  has  made  it  impossible  for  an  individual 
physically  to  reproduce  himself  except  through 
an  external  act.  Only  when  we  get  an  adequate 
emotional  outlet  do  we  feel  the  satisfaction  of  ac- 
complishment. When  we  say  that  every  life  must 
have  an  emotional  outlet  we  literally  mean  that  we 
must  move  out  of  ourselves,  we  must  (as  we  have 
to  liberate  our  libido)  acquire  a  means  of  giving 
outward  manifestations  to  certain  states  of  mind 
such  as  tenderness,   affection,  love,  friendship, 

162 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

sympathy,  or  any  of  the  fine  spiritual  qualities 
which  are  conducive  to  the  reproducing  and  sav- 
ing of  life,  in  short,  the  creative  emotions. 


REPRODUCTION 

In  the  lower  forms  of  animal  life  the  reproduc- 
tive process  practically  constitutes  life's  entire 
function.  In  any  form  of  animal  life  the  power- 
ful law  of  attraction  calls  together  the  individuals 
of  opposite  sex.  At  such  times,  so  strong  is  the 
mating  instinct,  it  is  as  if  one  cell  out  of  all  the 
huge  mass  of  protoplasm  in  the  male  exercised 
sole  control  over  its  entire  movements,  which  are 
directed  solely  by  that  one  cell,  for  the  purpose  of 
finding  and  uniting  with  just  one  cell  in  the  mass 
of  protoplasm  in  the  female.^  The  result  of  this 
union  is  a  unicellular  organism,  in  which  the  two 
substances  combine  intimately  and  produce  a  new 
cell  having  a  more  powerful  energy  of  growth 
than  any  other  cell  in  the  body  of  either  male  or 
female.  In  some  forms  of  reproduction  which  are 
known  as  budding  the  new  individual  or  bud  lives 
only  at  the  expense  of  the  old  trunk,  which  gives 
life  to  the  new  branches.  But  in  animal  reproduc- 
tion the  result  of  the  union  of  the  male  and  female 
cells  is  a  completely  independent  individual,  un- 
like the  bud  which  is  dependent  on  the  branch 
from  which  it  grows. 

iSee  Ribot:  Psychology  of  the  Emotions. 

163 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

In  the  higher  multicellular  animals  the  individ- 
uals possess  a  mobility  secured  through  a  nervous 
system  which  becomes  the  mental  director  of  the 
living  organism,  and  invests  it  with  its  indi- 
vidual character.  This  extraordinary  complexity 
of  organization  is  what  allows  the  higher  forms  of 
animal  life,  bees  and  other  social  insects  and  ani- 
mals, and,  above  all,  humans,  to  form  numerous 
social  relations  with  other  individuals — relation- 
ships which  are  impossible  in  lower  orders  of  ani- 
mal life.  This  higher  type  of  complicated  organ- 
ism is  entirely  dependent,  for  the  preservation  of 
the  species,  upon  the  proper  functioning  of  the 
reproductive  element,  for  the  species  would  disap- 
pear if  the  male  cells  could  not  find  and  reach  the 
female  cells  through  the  active  movement  of  the 
individual  as  a  whole. 

SPRINGTIME   OF   LOVE 

Thus  nature  produces  the  marvellous  phe- 
nomenon, that  of  the  desire  to  escape  from  all 
authority  and  to  go  forth  to  find  the  mate,  pene- 
trating the  entire  nervous  system  of  adolescent 
youth.  Body  and  soul  being  transfused  by  this 
instinct  makes,  for  a  time  at  least,  every  action  of 
the  individual  a  delight  and  an  ecstasy.  Every 
activity  being,  at  these  times,  in  perfect  align- 
ment, directed  toward  the  same  goal,  the  individ- 
ual's complete  unity  with  the  mate  uplifts  him  to 

164 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

the  highest  ideals.  This  ardent  desire  and  power- 
ful impulse  becomes  the  strongest  motive,  it  is 
the  strongest  instinct  in  every  member  of  the 
species.  It  arises  to  an  overwhelming  intensity 
in  every  part  of  the  nervous  system  as  the  age 
of  puberty  is  completed,  and  attracts  the  individ- 
ual irresistibly  to  the  opposite  sex.  The  interest 
and  pleasure  of  self-preservation  which  has  oc- 
cupied the  child's  attention  is  effaced  by  this  new 
instinct.  The  desire  to  find  a  mate  dominates 
every  phase  of  individual  life.  It  fills  our  fiction 
and  our  drama,  telling  over  and  over  again  the 
old,  old  story  that  the  course  of  true  love  never 
does  run  smooth,  and  relating  the  adventures  and 
misunderstandings  of  hero  and  heroine  until  they 
marry  and  live  happily  ever  afterwards.  It  is 
given  expression  in  the  lines  of  our  poets.  As  we 
look  at  nature  we  see  everywhere  the  same  desire 
of  one  sex  to  attract  another,  in  the  song  of  the 
bird,  the  hum  of  the  insect  and  the  blossom  of  the 
plant.  The  young  man  and  woman  are  domi- 
nated by  a  major  influence  and  see  the  world  in  a 
celestial  haze  of  colours  which  veil  all  the  defects 
and  miseries  of  reality.  Each  swears  impossible 
things  and  believes  in  immortal  happiness.  A 
reciprocal  illusion  transforms  all  life  into  a  mi- 
rage of  bliss.  Some,  however,  do  not  gain  the 
perfection  of  this  bliss,  even  at  the  first  awaken- 
ing of  these  instincts,  and  in  a  few  others  there  is 
no  bliss  at  all.     The  men  and  women  we  meet 

165 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

range  all  the  way  from  zero  to  perfection  in  the 
way  their  emotions  respond  to  the  environment 
when  it  contains  the  elements  of  a  possible  love- 
life.  What  the  unmarried,  both  bachelors  and 
maids,  and  the  mismated  married  persons  all  lack 
is  the  proper  and  adequate  expressions  of  their 
emotions  buried  under  a  blocked  libido. 


DESEXUAUZATION 

We  can  readily  see  the  importance  of  the  nor- 
mal and  timely  development  of  the  reproductive 
power  of  life  by  contrasting  it  with  the  effects  of 
castration  or  ovariotomy,  which  profoundly  af- 
fect the  energies,  both  physical  and  mental,  of 
both  sexes.  Men  become  thin,  their  voices  high- 
pitched  and  their  chests  narrow.  They  become 
beardless,  or  nearly  so,  and  lose  the  spirit  of  con- 
quest which  characterizes  true  manliness. 
Women  become  fat,  and  sometimes  take  on  mas- 
culine traits.  When  we  see  that  loss  of  sex  power, 
whether  from  castration,  impotence  or  sterility  in 
the  male,  ovariotomy  and  barrenness  in  the  fe- 
male leads  to  neurosis  and  degeneration,  it  is 
remarkable  that  we  have  not  given  deeper  con- 
sideration to  this  vital  subject.  During  the 
adolescent  period  children,  as  a  rule,  get  very 
little  assistance  from  their  parents  who  are  unable 
to  help  children  in  their  love-life.  Influenced  by 
their  own  unhappy  experiences,  they  either  err  in 

166 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

representing  to  the  child  a  condition  which  is 
undesirable  or  in  giving  the  child  an  inaccurate 
even  if  not  unpleasant  impression  of  the  sub- 
ject. 

A  child  should  never  be  frightened  or  shamed 
about  sex.  Many  parents  do  both  without  know- 
ing it.  It  is  not  possible  for  parents  to  give  sex 
instruction  to  a  child  if  the  parent  is  not  abso- 
lutely pure-minded  about  it,  for  the  knowledge 
should  be  presented  as  an  impersonal  and  scien- 
tific matter  of  fact.  Otherwise,  a  child's  questions 
had  better  be  answered  in  the  business-like  man- 
ner of  a  specialist.  It  is  a  subject  which  must  be 
faced  as  soon  as  questions  are  asked,  and  truth 
must  be  told  in  a  general  way.  Without  such  in- 
formation given  a  child  when  it  asks,  all  sorts  of 
weird  phantasies  about  sex  may  be  passing 
through  the  child's  mind,  which  manifest  them- 
selves in  many  unusual  acts,  called  abnormal.  We 
are  so  careful  about  feeding  our  children's  bodies, 
but  how  rarely  do  we  feed  their  minds  as  success- 
fully. Sex  education  cannot  be  shirked  without  the 
risk  of  doing  the  greatest  harm  to  a  child  in  future 
years,  and  equal  harm  may  be  done  by  filling  a 
child's  mind  with  fear  and  horror  of  the  whole 
subject  as  the  surest  way  of  keeping  the  adoles- 
cent from  yielding  to  temptations. 

By  rough  handling  children  can  be  taught  to 
fear  anything;  there  is  nothing  but  detriment  in 
fear,  yet  we  consciously  continue  to  teach  and 

167 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

govern  our  children  by  fear  long  after  their  in- 
tellect has  grown.  Fear  of  evil,  however,  is  no 
proper  motive  for  refraining  from  evil.  The  weak 
handling  of  the  sex  education,  the  awful  silence 
and  mystery  of  the  birth  of  a  child,  frightens  with 
breathless  awe  a  growing  girl.  And  from  my 
results  in  analysis  of  pregnant  women,  I  believe 
much  of  the  obstetrical  complications  and  pro- 
tracted hours  of  labour  can  be  traced  to  the 
'^conspiracy  of  silence  "  surrounding  the  young 
girl. 


AUTO-EROTISM 

It  is  most  important  that  parents  should  care- 
fully consider  the  effects,  too,  caused  in  their  chil- 
dren's minds,  not  by  fear  of  any  external  activity, 
but  by  pleasure  derived  from  an  internal  one. 
For,  if  through  any  cause,  a  child  forms  a  habit, 
which  all  children  are  prone  to  do,  of  securing 
pleasure  largely  through  internal  activities  (i.e. 
thoughts)  or  from  activities  carried  out  upon  his 
own  body,  as  all  such  activities  must  be  if  they  are 
not  directed  to  the  accomplishment  of  a  concrete 
result  in  the  world  of  external  reality,  he  will  have 
begun  a  habit  which  tends  to  shut  him  off  from 
the  proper  kind  of  intercourse  with  his  fellows. 
Should  this  isolating  habit  gain  complete  mastery 
over  his  character  he  might  as  well  be  sent  to  a 
sanitarium  for  good.    How  some  children  injure 

168 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

themselves  in  producing  in  themselves  a  relaxa- 
tion of  the  libido  in  unnatural  ways  is  clearly  illus- 
trated by  the  following  case  of  a  thirteen-year-old 
girl.  She  shows  also  the  results  of  too  early  forc- 
ing of  growth. 

She  was  sent  to  me  for  analysis  for  petit  mat 
(spells  resembling  epilepsy).  Her  parents  were 
theatrical  people  in  vaudeville.  At  three  years 
of  age  this  child  was  taught  songs  and  put  on  the 
stage  and  earned  for  her  parents  $35.00  a  week. 
Her  first  attack  was  at  five  years  of  age.  The 
doctor  told  them  it  resulted  from  indigestion. 
Another  attack  came  in  a  few  months  and  the 
spells  continued  but  did  not  interrupt  her  stage 
work.  At  eight  years  she  was  earning  $85.00  a 
week.  The  parents  could  show  her  only  in  the 
states  where  the  child  labour  law  did  not  inter- 
fere, and  so  they  travelled  from  place  to  place. 
The  spells  came  at  shorter  intervals,  from  once 
or  twice  a  month  to  two  or  three  a  day.  Their 
character  changed  when  she  was  about  nine  years 
old,  and  became  shorter.  When  she  came  to  me 
her  face  was  pale  and  dull  in  expression.  Her 
eyes  were  dark  and  brilliant,  they  searched  every 
one  to  **see  if  they  are  my  friends.''  Friends  to 
her  meant  people  she  could  be  familiar  with, 
climbing  on  their  laps,  putting  her  arms  around 
their  necks,  or  leaning  her  head  on  their  shoulders. 
In  her  vaudeville  life  she  had  seen  many  familiari- 
ties which  she  tried  to  emulate  with  her  friends, 

169 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

but  if  not  allowed  to  do  so  she  used  herself  as  a 
substitute.    She  called  it  "loving  herself.'* 

The  spells  of  petit  mal  usually  came  when  she 
was  in  the  bathroom,  or  alone  at  night  after  she 
had  gone  to  bed.  The  parents  thought  the  girl 
was  frightened,  as  the  peculiar  cry  which  epi- 
leptics give  preceded  an  attack.  A  lowered  men- 
tality and  lack  of  physical  growth  had  alarmed 
them,  they  had  kept  her  from  school  although  she 
begged  to  go,  but  from  pride  the  parents  kept  her 
hidden.  They  did  not  want  to  be  disgraced  by  such 
a  child,  they  said,  and  school  to  the  child  meant 
only  a  place  to  play  with  other  children.  The 
analysis  revealed  the  premature  passion  which 
had  blazed  up  and  died  down  with  the  girl's  '* lov- 
ing herself  so  frequently.  The  horrified  parents 
gave  their  fullest  co-operation  in  helping  to  bring 
up  the  life  which  had  sunk  so  far  down.  Grad- 
ually her  face  gained  in  expression,  colour  re- 
turned, the  eyes  lost  their  hard,  glaring  look.  It 
was  three  years  before  she  had  clean,  healthy  lan- 
guage and  conduct,  and  even  then  she  had  not  the 
normal  child's  reactions,  so  slowly  did  that  par- 
ticular young  life  recuperate. 

The  foregoing  case  shows  the  results  of  too 
great  acceleration  in  the  development  of  the  emo- 
tions. The  next  case  is  one  of  retardation  and 
stunting  due  to  one  of  the  causes  I  have  mentioned 
already  in  this  chapter,  namely,  the  scaring  or 
shaming  of  the  child  in  matters  of  sex. 

170 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 


AN  INCOKEIGIBLE  GIRL 


A  mother  brought  her  sixteen-year-old  daugh- 
ter for  analysis,  saying  that  since  her  eleventh 
year  the  girl  had  been  growing  more  and  more 
incorrigible.  She  would  not  stay  in  school,  had 
no  idea  of  time,  was  late  for  meals  and  other  ap- 
pointments, was  slovenly  in  appearance,  with 
holes  in  the  heels  of  her  stockings  showing  above 
her  shoetops.  The  mother  had  thought  that  if 
only  the  girl  could  be  made  to  stay  in  a  good 
boarding-school,  the  other  faults  would  be  reme- 
died, but  whether  far  or  near  the  girl  would 
always  run  away  and  go  home.  Once  she  was  put 
in  a  school  over  ^ve  hundred  miles  away.  The 
mother  hoped,  as  it  was  so  distant,  that  the  girl 
would  be  too  timid  to  travel  so  far  among 
strangers.  Distance,  however,  had  no  effect,  as 
she  left  school  one  night  after  dinner,  walked  aU 
night  and  for  thirty  hours  until  exhausted  and 
then  asked  aid  to  reach  home. 

Although  she  was  physically  large  and  well-de- 
veloped, she  apparently  cared  nothing  for  boys' 
or  girls '  society.  She  denied  all  knowledge  of  the 
reproductive  process,  although  in  this  matter  she 
had  been  instructed  most  carefully  by  her  mother, 
though,  as  will  be  shown,  the  mother  took  care  to 
make  her  afraid  of  sex.  She  never  wanted  to  get 
up  mornings  and  liked  to  spend  the  entire  day  in 
her  room,  with  the  door  locked,  playing  with  her 

171 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

belongings.  Her  maid  described  her  as  **just 
fiddling  and  fussing,  poking  in  her  bureau  draw- 
ers, or  sitting  on  the  floor  as  a  child  with  toys." 
Her  unconscious  was  found  to  be  filled  with  sexual 
phantasies.  *^A  tramp  was  chasing  her  through 
a  cornfield.  She  was  so  frightened  and  if  he  had 
caught  her  she  would  have  surely  died.''  Again 
*^  there  was  a  caterpillar  as  long  as  the  stairs. 
Some  one  said  it  was  a  caterpillar  but  it  didn't 
look  like  one."  She  refused  to  describe  it,  other- 
wise than  that  it  was  the  most  terrible  looking 
thing  she  ever  saw.  Always  in  the  unconscious 
she  was  being  pursued  by  some  frightful  form  of 
life,  which  she  symbolized  as  tramps,  caterpillars 
or  fish  that  jumped  at  her.  In  other  words,  she 
was  afraid  to  meet  life.  Life  was  frightful  to  her, 
having  been  presented  to  her  in  some  ugly  form. 
The  mystery  associated  with  it  alarmed  her.  She 
refused  to  stand  alone,  and  to  assume  any  respon- 
sibility, but  shut  herself  away  from  people  in 
order  to  continue  her  childhood  unmolested.  She 
had  no  example  to  imitate  in  growing  up.  Her 
parents  had  separated  in  her  eleventh  year.  The 
father  had  a  violent  temper  which  he  freely  vented 
upon  his  wife  in  the  girPs  presence.  The  mother 
had  large  social  demands,  kept  late  hours,  had 
much  friction  with  servants  and  with  the  quarrel- 
ling husband.  We  plainly  see  how  the  girl  became 
the  innocent  victim  of  her  unfortunate  environ- 
ment and,  when  the  strong  demands  of  nature 

172 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

were  felt  in  her  adolescent  years,  slie  did  not  know 
how  to  meet  them,  as  mutual  love  and  respect 
were  unknown  to  her.  She,  therefore,  shunned  all 
knowledge  and  tried  to  remain  in  childhood. 


wanted:  a  despotic  husband 

The  splitting  of  the  libido  in  childhood,  referred 
to  in  Chapter  IV,  page  82,  is  well  illustrated  in 
the  case  of  a  married  woman,  Mrs.  S.,  who  was 
sent  to  me  for  analysis  to  relieve  the  troubles  of 
her  very  unhappy  married  life.  She  was  a 
^* border  line"  case,  diagnosed  as  Dementia 
Praecox.  She  had  not  married  the  man  she  most 
loved,  and  had  girlhood  problems  which  had 
greatly  disturbed  her  happiness ;  but  the  present 
trouble  had  been  in  no  way  attributed  to  the 
events  of  those  years.  The  analysis  showed  the 
mental  trouble  to  have  become  manifest  about  the 
twelfth  year.  Mrs.  S.  had  a  brother  she  was  fond 
of  and  a  younger  sister  who  was  so  entirely  dif- 
ferent that  they  never  had  any  patience  with  each 
other's  idiosyncrasies.  The  disturbing  member 
of  the  home  in  her  young  life  had  been  her  father. 
They  never  could  please  him.  He  was  so  irritable 
and  so  easily  annoyed  that  she  always  wondered 
what  she  had  done  and  always  tried  hard  to  please 
him  for  a  word  of  appreciation,  but  never  suc- 
ceeded. 

When  she  was  twelve  years  old,  her  father  and 
173 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

mother  put  her  in  a  boarding-school  and  went  to 
Europe.  She  was  bitterly  disappointed,  *'Why 
didn't  they  take  me  with  them?  They  must  have 
brought  me  here  just  to  get  rid  of  me''  was  her 
haunting  thought.  She  was  dull  and  listless,  made 
up  her  mind  she  would  not  study  or  learn  any- 
thing, and  drummed  on  the  piano  instead  of  prac- 
tising, as  she  expressed  it  in  her  analysis. 

At  one  visit  she  produced  the  following  dream : 
*^0n  a  train  with  a  neighbour  I  know  very  slightly, 
and  my  mother.  The  neighbour  buttons  my 
mother's  shoes.  I  am  with  another  acquaintoMce 
who  has  six  lovely  children.  I  help  a  man  to  hatch 
chickens.  We  put  eggs  in  hot  water  on  a  stove  im 
a  garage  or  outbuilding.  Put  the  chickens  in  a 
pan  of  sawdust.'' 

In  the  analysis  it  came  out  that  she  feels  she  is 
not  fit  to  button  the  shoes  of  a  real  mother  as 
she  has  never  herself  been  a  real  mother.  Al- 
though she  has  three  children,  she  feels  she  has 
failed  in  her  motherly  duties.  But  with  her  neigh- 
bour's husband  she  would  have  been  a  better 
mother  for  her  children.  She  herself  has  had 
lovely  children,  but  has  tried  to  feed  them  on  saw- 
dust. She  had  surrounded  herself  with  sawdust. 
Nothing  will  grow  in  sawdust.  She  had  not 
grown. 

The  haunting  thought  stayed  with  her  after  the 
parents  returned,  when  she  began  to  evince  an 
extreme  negativistic  attitude  toward  everything, 

174 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

refusing  to  do  anything  her  parents  asked  of  her. 
There  was  a  *^ scene''  at  the  breakfast  table  she 
told  me  of,  when  her  father  ordered  boiled  eggs 
for  their  breakfast.  She  refused  to  eat  them.  He 
said  he  would  see  if  she  would  eat  them  or  not, 
jumped  up  from  his  chair,  and  started  toward 
her.  She  also  left  her  chair,  and  he  chased  her 
around  the  table  until  she  left  the  room.  He 
ordered  her  to  her  room  where  she  stayed  and  re- 
fused to  eat  until  a  physician  was  called.  She  told 
of  the  physician's  puzzled  face  as  he  examined 
her,  and  how  he  finally  coaxed  her  not  to  make  any 
more  trouble,  but  to  be  a  good  girl.  He  was  an 
old  man  and  tender  and  gentle.  She  yielded  to 
him  because  he  asked  her,  and  not  to  please  her 
father,  she  said. 

She  married  and  had  three  children,  a  boy  and 
two  girls.  She  knew,  when  she  married,  that  she 
did  not  love  her  husband,  but  admired  his  hon- 
esty of  purpose,  his  fine,  strong,  fearless  determi- 
nation to  do  right  in  a  business  world  so  full  of 
dishonesty  and  of  not  taking  unfair  advantages  of 
the  weakness  of  others. 

She  told  of  a  love  affair  with  a  man  she  knew 
in  her  girlhood.  She  refused  to  marry  him,  but 
did  not  know  why,  and  a  few  months  before  the 
birth  of  her  first  child  she  met  him  again.  The 
meeting  probably  caused  a  deeply  emotional  re- 
action on  her  part.  He  had  clasped  her  hand  and 
said  nothing.    She  wished  to  throw  herself  into 

175 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

his  arms,  but  it  was  a  public  place,  and  she  could 
not.  That  was  the  last  she  knew  of  him.  He 
served  as  a  phantasy  to  dream  of,  but  while  her 
husband  was  exceedingly  kind  and  indulgent  to 
her  he  was  never  satisfying.  She  thought  he 
should  always  compel  her  to  attend  to  his  wants, 
showing  the  father  ideal  was  the  one  she  re- 
spected. Her  husband  was  successful  in  business. 
By  giving  her  diamonds,  automobiles,  a  beautiful 
house  and  furniture,  he  tried  to  cure  the  deep  de- 
pressions from  which  she  suffered;  but  the  more 
he  gave  the  more  she  hated  him.  Already  clogged 
with  her  emotions  she  was  unable  to  reciprocate 
until  they  all  burst  forth  in  a  volcanic  eruption. 

She  went  for  a  cold  to  the  doctor  who  had 
coaxed  her  to  be  a  good  girl  and  eat.  He  advised 
her  to  go  to  a  hospital  for  a  few  days  and  rest  up 
and  cure  her  cold.  She  did  so,  and  then,  as  we  so 
often  find,  she  grew  worse  and  felt  that  she  was 
in  a  world  of  darkness.  The  terrible  feeling  of 
slipping  away  from  reality,  and  the  blackness  she 
felt  herself  surrounded  by  lasted  many  weeks. 
She  clung  to  the  fatherly  physician  until  relieved 
and  gradually  as  reason  returned  he  encouraged 
her  to  submit  to  an  analysis.  She  had  found  the 
ideal  father  in  her  physician  and  the  buried  emo- 
tions were  brought  to  the  surface.  To  take  her 
libido  from  the  father  and  put  it  in  husband  and 
children  and  home  was  too  difficult  at  first.  She 
had  to  work  her  way  slowly  by  finding  herself 

176 


BUEIED  EMOTIONS 

alone  and  supporting  herself.  She  worked  in  the 
linen  room  of  a  large  school.  As  she  continued 
her  analysis  her  dreams  changed  as  her  wishes 
changed.  She  saw  a  side  of  life  hitherto  unknown. 
By  comparison  her  home,  husband  and  children 
seemed  ideal.  She  sent  for  her  husband,  asked  to 
be  taken  back.  She  had  relinquished  the  child- 
hood problems  of  whether  or  not  her  father  loved 
her,  and  if  not  why  not,  and  was  able  to  use  all 
her  energy  in  her  home  as  wife  and  mother. 

The  cases  already  given  in  this  chapter  illus- 
trate the  results  of  fixation  referred  to  in  Chapter 
IV.  It  is  clear  that  in  both  of  these  girls  the  libido 
had  become  attached  to  a  type  of  emotional  re- 
action which  was  essentially  infantile  and  that 
this  fixation  prevented  the  thirteen-year-old  girl 
from  developing  both  physically  and  mentally. 
The  sixteen-year  old,  while  well  developed  physi- 
cally, still  remained  a  very  young  child  emotion- 
ally, having  acquired  an  inability  to  face  the  reali- 
ties of  life,  because  they  had  been  presented  to  her 
by  her  mother  in  a  mental  picture  that  caused  fear 
to  be  the  emotion  regularly  associated  with  the 
topic  instead  of  respect.  This  is  a  very  common 
policy  on  the  part  of  the  parents;  but  the  use  of 
fear  as  a  motive  in  connection  with  sex  is  by  all 
odds  the  most  supremely  senseless  method  that 
the  folly  of  mankind  could  devise.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  those  in  our  nerve  sanitariums  are 
there  because  of  an  unconscious  fear  of  sex,  im- 

177 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

planted  in  their  souls  by  parents,  nurses  or  com- 
panions, and  resulting  in  perversions  of  infantile 
character.  Parents  usually  think  to  secure  per- 
sonal purity  in  their  children  through  the  motive 
of  fear,  but  this  prevention  of  impurity  is  worse 
than  the  disease  itself.  It  positively  inhibits  the 
power  of  life. 

CUEIOSITY 

The  cosmic  urge  to  growth  in  children  sooner 
or  later  shows  itself  in  the  desire  for  more  life  in 
a  phase  marked  by  curiosity  as  to  how  they  and 
other  children  were  born,  or  *' where  they  came 
from."  Parents  who  regard  such  curiosity  as 
anything  abnormal  are  indeed  ignorant.  It  is  but 
one  of  the  many  expressions  of  the  craving  for 
life.  This  cosmic  urge,  the  straightest,  cleanest, 
purest  thing  in  the  world,  as  it  exists  in  the  child, 
is  in  its  freshness  like  an  unblemished  blade  of 
grass  and  frequently  is  smutched  by  the  foul  heel 
of  the  parent  who  is  fatuously  unaware  of  what  he 
has  done.  This  craving  for  life  meets  obstacles 
of  various  kinds.  In  some  children  it  pushes  on, 
nevertheless,  however  marred,  while  in  others  it 
is  blasted  and  seems  not  to  grow  at  all.  The  ob- 
stacles encountered  may  be,  as  we  have  seen,  un- 
reasonable demands  made  by  a  despotic  father,  or 
by  a  domineering  busybody  of  a  mother,  who 
quickly  represses  any  spontaneous  outgiving  on 
the  child's  part  and  remains  blankly  ignorant  of 

178 


BURIED  EMOTIONS 

the  significance  of  the  manifestations  of  the 
child's  libido.  Other  bad  influences  too  cause  un- 
desirable retardation  or  even  acceleration  of  the 
application  of  the  libido  to  matters  purely  or  sym- 
bolically sexual.  An  accelerating  influence  is  that 
of  companions  or  servants  who  have  aroused  too 
early,  by  act  or  word,  the  sexual  instinct  which  is 
ever  present  but  should  be  dormant  until  rightly 
used  in  sublimation  and  in  marriage.  Too  much 
indulgence  is  also  an  accelerating  factor.  So  are 
quarrelling  parents  or  a  home  life  unhappy  from 
any  cause.  In  such  a  case  the  repressed  wishes 
in  the  unconscious,  usually  consisting  of  desires 
for  freedom,  where  there  is  a  domineering  parent, 
or,  where  the  parents  are  unhappily  mated,  of  de- 
sires for  an  ideal  parent  to  replace  the  disappoint- 
ing one,  break  forth  into  consciousness  in  various 
ways.  Even  a  too  great  love  for  a  parent  who  is 
actually  ideal  will  have  the  same  result. 

To  summarize  this  chapter,  which  has  to  do 
with  the  mainspring  of  all  human  action,  I  may 
remind  the  reader  again  of  the  significance  that 
sexual  reproduction  has  in  the  externalization  of 
the  emotions.  Possibly  it  would  be  better  to  say 
that  through  the  emotions  which  can  be  associated 
with  either  internal  or  external  activities,  that  is 
unsocial  or  social  ones,  the  child  may  be  led  by  the 
parent  to  attain  the  true  adult  attitude  toward  the 
world.  The  importance  of  the  higher  type  of  re- 
production is  seen  when  we  study  the  results  of 

179 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

what  miglit  be  called  a  desexualization  of  the  in- 
dividual which,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  may  be 
either  physical  or  mental,  the  mental  being  caused 
generally  by  parental  ignorance  or  inertia.  Sex 
education  given  in  an  absolutely  impersonal 
scientific  way  with  the  idea  of  impressing  the  child 
with  its  exceptionless  universality  is  necessary  in 
order  to  remove  fear  from  his  heart.  He  is  once 
and  for  all  to  be  freed  from  the  impression  that 
he  is  himself  in  any  way  unusual,  abnormal,  queer 
or  peculiar,  and  that  the  sexual  life  is  essentially 
bad  or  disgusting  or  to  be  repressed,  but  must  be 
controlled  and  sublimated  in  work.  Having  as- 
sured ourselves  that  he  suffers  from  no  miscon- 
ception on  that  point,  we  should  carefully  remove 
all  possible  obstacles  to  the  outflowing  of  his 
libido  upon  activities  connected  with  the  world 
outside  the  family ;  and  we  should  strive  to  teach 
him  how  to  control  his  vital  urge  instead  of  re- 
pressing it  or  having  it  run  away  with  him. 


180 


CHAPTER  IX 

CHILD  TEAINING 

The  urge  of  life  at  the  age  of  puberty  is  neces- 
sarily felt  by  all  adolescents.  It  is  a  difficult  time 
for  children.  A  great  psychological  change  is 
taking  place  in  them,  as  they  are  leaving  their 
playtime,  their  toys  and  their  make-believes  for 
the  real  things  of  life.  New  demands  for  self- 
control  are  made  upon  them,  their  wants  are  of 
the  nature  both  of  child  and  adult.  The  boy  imi- 
tates the  man,  he  wants  to  smoke,  to  go  out  nights, 
he  absorbs  obscene  stories  which  he  proudly  tells 
as  he  struts  around  with  the  air  of  a  bantam  cock. 
The  girl  tries  to  assert  her  individuality  by  a  new 
way  of  arranging  her  hair,  by  changing  her  mode 
of  dressing  and  by  demands  for  greater  freedom 
in  associating  with  her  friends. 

The  natural  appetites  are  inherited  instincts, 
whose  roots  are  found  in  the  remotest  prehistoric 
ages  of  the  human  race.  Hunger  for  food  is  the 
basis  of  the  preservation  of  the  individual  and 
hunger  for  the  affections,  for  love  and  for  friend- 
ship is  the  basis  of  the  preservation  of  the  species. 
All  appetites  (various  modes  of  the  manifestation 
of  the  libido)  imply  a  imsh  and  belong  to  the 
motor  side  of  nervous  activity.    In  them  there  is 

181 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

some  internal  urge  to  outward  action  for  the  pur- 
pose of  satisfying  hunger,  whether  for  food  or 
love.  The  nerve  mechanisms  which  function  in 
expressing  the  appetites  are  a  lower  order  of 
mechanism,  being  centred  in  the  more  primitive 
nerve  cells,  and  thus  belong  to  a  class  of  actions 
otherwise  called  automatic.  They  function  of 
themselves  apart  from,  and  independently  of,  con- 
sciousness, which,  however,  can  and  must  gain 
control  of  these  instinctive  activities  during  the 
period  of  adolescence. 

This  automatic  nature  of  the  appetites  gives 
them  the  privilege,  however,  of  drawing  upon  the 
limitless  force  of  the  unconscious.  They  are  in 
a  sense  nearer  to  the  source  of  life  itself.  With- 
out our  being  aware  of  what  we  are  doing,  these 
truly  inward  and  vital  forces  send  us  forth  to  acts 
which  frequently  are  directly  opposed  to  the  high- 
est conscious  desires.  If  not  controlled  they  have 
the  power  to  stunt  and  paralyse  what  might  be 
called  the  psychic  muscles  which  in  educated 
people  ought  to  be  strongly  developed.  But  in 
many  educated  men  this  psychic  muscle,  by  which 
I  mean  more  than  ordinary  will  power,  is  so  flabby 
that  they  have  not  the  strength  to  resist  tempta- 
tions. 

The  primitive  man  within  them  is  never  con- 
trolled but  is  always  keenly  alive  and  active,  en- 
deavouring to  secure  the  gratification  of  primitive 
desires.    When  the  unconscious  gets  control  of 

182 


CHILD  TRAINING 

their  actions,  they  are  as  it  is  called  *' carried 
away"  by  visionary  schemes,  investing  the  money 
of  their  best  friends,  and  even  of  the  members  of 
their  own  families  in  the  gamble  of  unwise  specu- 
lations. They  are  extravagant  in  gratifying  their 
tastes,  knowing  well,  however,  that  they  must  neg- 
lect their  ethical  and  religious  principles  in  satis- 
fying these  selfish  and  unsocial  desires.  They 
must  borrow  from  their  self-respect  in  order  to 
pay  for  their  indulgences.  These  phenomena  all 
show  that  the  archaic  nature  of  man  is  very  near 
the  surface,  constantly  breaking  through  the  thin 
shell  of  civilization.  The  desire  to  get  something 
for  nothing,  to  accumulate  and  to  hoard,  irrespec- 
tive of  the  manner  of  acquirement  (all  unsocial 
desires)  would  be  carried  to  such  extremes  that 
the  race  would  become  extinct,  if  they  were  not  in 
most  cases  outweighed  by  the  stronger  instinct  of 
reproduction  in  direct  opposition  to  the  accumu- 
lating or  hoarding  instinct.  The  latter  is  a  grasp- 
ing, the  former  a  surrendering  attitude. 

The  fact  of  the  fusion  of  the  two  cells  at  the 
moment  of  inception  of  a  human  life,  and  the  fact 
that  each  parent  in  order  to  receive  has  to  give 
something,  thus  becomes  the  moral  basis  of  the 
necessity  for  apparent  giving  up,  relinquishing 
some  part  of  the  ego,  of  letting  go  instead  of 
grasping  tightly.  One  must  sow  in  order  to  reap. 
The  farmer  has  to  bury  expensive  seed  in  the 
ground;  and  in  all  spheres  of  human  life  giving 

183 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

has  to  precede  getting,  no  matter  what  the  kind  of 
gain,  whether  it  be  children  or  money.  In  science, 
art,  literature  or  labour  we  must  give  to  our  work 
our  best  efforts,  backed  by  all  our  interest  and  all 
our  cosmic  urge  of  life.  No  work  is  adequate  ac- 
tivity for  our  powers  unless  it  is  a  work  which 
arouses  our  deepest  and  most  pervasive  emotions. 


LIBEEATION   OF   LIBIDO 

*' Liberation"  and  '* libido"  are  both  from  the 
same  Latin  word  which  means  a  freeing,  or  desire 
to  be  freed,  from  obstructions,  and  both  are  de- 
scendants, together  with  English  **love"  from  the 
common  Sanskrit  ancestor  lubJi — desire.  It  hap- 
pens that  the  instinctive  acts  (through  which  the 
individual  frees  himself,  exercises  his  muscles  or 
any  part  of  his  personality  and,  at  the  same  time, 
secures  the  relaxation  of  the  tension  of  his  un- 
conscious desires)  frequently  interfere  with  the 
same  sort  of  liberation  of  energy  on  the  part  of 
other  people.  This  is  the  cause  of  the  inevitable 
opposition  between  society  and  the  individual,  an 
opposition  which  society  has  to  exert,  without 
which  it  could  not  exist.  But  in  order  for  the 
community  to  prosper,  the  individual's  instinctive 
modes  of  liberation  of  energy  have  to  be  con- 
trolled. This  means  the  suppression  of  some 
wishes  and  the  training  of  others.  One  of  the 
simplest   illustrations   is   the   young   child's    in- 

184 


CHILD  TRAINING 

stinct  to  throw  things.  In  throwing  there  is  a 
paroxysmal  activity  reaching  an  acme,  which  is  an 
absence  of  all  control.  As  the  freeing  of  energy 
is  accomplished  in  animals,  including  humans, 
with  the  maximum  degree  of  the  feeling  we  call 
pleasure,  that  form  of  liberation  which  is  least  ac- 
companied by  any  other  conscious  condition  is  the 
most  pleasurable.  Throwing  gives  a  child  this 
form  of  pleasure  in  a  high  degree.  So  do  kicking, 
jumping,  running  and  the  aimless  exercise  of  all 
the  voluntary  muscles.  It  explains  the  tremen- 
dous popularity  of  baseball,  where  the  players  al- 
ternate between  comparative  rest  and  a  paroxysm 
of  action  in  which  they  liberate  absolutely  all  of 
their  available  energy,  the  players  in  their  strikes 
and  runs,  the  '^ fans''  in  their  applause  (see  Chap- 
ter X).  In  the  baseball  game  this  liberation  is 
secured  in  a  manner  which  is  acceptable  to  the 
community  while  aimless  throwing  on  the  part  of 
young  children  has  not  only  no  social  value  but  it 
has  frequently  a  real  injury  connected  with  it. 

Figuratively  speaking,  then,  the  aim  of  child 
training  is  to  get  the  child  to  throw  according  to 
the  rules  of  a  game.  This  requires  him  sometimes 
to  withhold  his  action  and  watch  that  of  another 
until  his  turn  comes.  One  sees  immediately  how 
difficult  this  waiting  is,  for  young  children.  All 
want  to  act  at  once.  Now  the  energy  which  the 
child  is  holding  in,  while  he  is  waiting  for  his 
turn  has  to  be  liberated  eventually  if  not  im- 

185 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

mediately.  Furthermore,  it  ought  to  be  accom- 
panied by  a  pleasure  as  great  as,  and  preferably 
greater  than,  that  of  merely  auto-erotic  kicking, 
jumping,  hitting  and  throwing.  But  in  some  home 
environments  this  is  impossible.  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  about  these  auto-erotic  muscular  ac- 
tivities in  a  later  chapter.  Due  to  a  very  pardon- 
able lack  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  parents, 
many  children  are  suppressed  without  being  given 
the  opportunity  to  discharge  their  accumulated 
vitality,  to  liberate  their  libido,  in  ways  which 
give  them  pleasure.  Instead  they  are  forced  to 
discharge  the  accumulation  in  ways  which  are  dis- 
tinctly painful,  or  at  least  uncomfortable,  for  all 
concerned,  but  particularly  for  the  child  himself, 
who  thereby  acquires  a  habit  of  experiencing  pain- 
ful emotions. 

PLEASURE  IN  PAIN 

The  habit  of  experiencing  painful  emotions  is 
acquired  through  the  pleasure  which  is  associated 
with  pain  itself.  Naturally,  any  discharge  of  ac- 
cumulated vitality  is  accompanied  with  a  distinct 
sense  of  pleasure.  But  when  the  natural  pleas- 
ure experienced  by  all  children  at  the  time  of  this 
discharge  is  associated  with  an  adventitious  paiu 
administered  by  parents,  there  is  a  link  estab- 
lished between  pleasure  and  pain.  The  pleasure 
is  there  in  every  escapade,  clouded  more  or  less 
darkly  with  approaching  or  actually  inflicted  pun- 

186 


CHILD  TRAINING 

isliment.  Parents  have  universally  thought  that 
punishment  is  necessary,  and  indeed  it  appears 
to  be  the  most  potent  and  instantaneous  means  of 
putting  a  quietus  on  the  unsocial  activity  of  the 
child.  But  when  at  the  end  of  the  day  the  stream 
is  no  longer  wanted  to  run  the  mill,  the  miller  does 
not  yell  at  it  to  stop  running,  nor  does  he  try  to 
dam  it  higher.  He  diverts  the  water  from  the  mill 
race  to  the  spillway,  where  it  continues  on  its 
seaward  journey.  The  flowing  of  the  stream  can- 
not safely  be  stopped,  and  the  miller  knows  it. 
The  activity  of  the  child  cannot  be  stopped,  but 
the  parent  does  not  know  this.  He  simply  com- 
mands ^^Shut  up!"  to  something  which  if  suc- 
cessfully ' '  shut  up ' '  must  sooner  or  later  explode 
in  crime  or  bum  slowly  in  neurosis.  In  the  bash- 
ful, diffident,  shifting  eye  of  the  pale-faced,  stoop- 
ing, hollow-chested  and  round-shouldered  child 
we  see  the  shut-up  child,  generally  shut  up  by  the 
excusable  ignorance  of  parent  or  hireling  substi- 
tute. Every  one  of  these  children  is  an  economic 
loss  to  the  country,  a  centre  of  force  which  could 
be  devoted  to  the  health  and  welfare  of  their  fel- 
lowmen,  had  not  they  been  almost  hopelessly 
blasted  like  peach  blossoms  by  an  early  frost — 
the  frost  of  the  ignorance  of  those  who  attempted 
(or  did  not  attempt)  to  bring  them  up. 

If,  with  everything  he  has  to  do,  a  child  is 
taught  to  associate  unpleasantness  instead  of  a 
sense  of  power  and  triumph  he  is  not  only  given 

187 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CRILD 

a  mental  twist  which  makes  him  see  everything 
wrongly,  but  one  which  prevents  him  from  acting 
wholesomely  in  every  most  intimate  relation  of  a 
later  love  life. 

CEEATIVE  EMOTIONS 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  the 
pleasurable  emotions  are  the  creative  ones  which 
build  up,  or  furnish  the  most  favourable  condi- 
tions for  building  up,  the  tissues  of  the  body  and 
thus  making  for  both  mental  and  physical  health. 
Nor  can  it  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  the  un- 
pleasurable  emotions  are  destructive  and  make 
for  both  physical  and  mental  illness.  It  should 
above  all  never  be  forgotten  that  it  is  frequently, 
if  not  always,  possible  for  the  parent  or  teacher 
to  choose  which  of  these  two  emotions  is  to  be 
felt  by  the  child  in  connection  with  any  required 
activity.  Such  choice  is  possible  for  the  one  in 
charge  of  the  child  but  never  for  the  child  him- 
self, because  he  is  only  a  creature  of  instinct  who 
must  react  with  pleasure  or  pain  according  to  pre- 
historic modes  of  feeling  until  pleasure  is  recom- 
bined  with  required  or  directed  acts  instead  of 
with  undirected  acts.  This  is  exactly  what  is 
meant  by  the  trained  or  social  liberation  of  the 
libido — the  direction  of  it  from  one  thing  to  an- 
other, either  one  of  which  may  do  quite  as  well 
for  the  child  as  a  means  of  getting  the  relaxation 
of  his  accumulated  tension. 

188 


CHILD  TRAINING 

A  very  simple  and  concrete  illustration  of  this 
recombination  is  seen  in  the  mother's  suggestion 
of  a  choice.  ^^Do  you  want/'  she  says,  **to  take 
your  magnesia  in  a  teaspoon  or  a  tablespoon  f 
**Do  you  want  to  sit  in  a  chair  or  stand  upT' 
This  offering  a  choice  gives  the  child  an  oppor- 
tunity of  making  the  act,  at  first  rejected  as  the 
enforced  requirement  on  the  part  of  another,  an 
act  almost  completely  his  own.  Then  a  bit  of 
praise  as  to  how  well  he  is  taking  the  medicine,  or 
how  fast  he  can  take  it,  or  some  encouraging  re- 
mark will  still  further  link  the  act  with  pleas- 
urable emotion  and  the  sense  of  power  on  which 
the  emotion  is  based.  He  may  even  be  induced  to 
attain  the  acme  of  a  throw  in  accomplishing  an 
act  which  is  forced  upon  him  from  without,  as 
when  a  stick  is  tied  by  a  long  string  to  a  loose 
tooth.  But  the  choice  is  the  thing  which  gives 
the  child  the  chance  to  feel,  *^I  will  take  this.  This 
will  be  mine/'  and  to  make  in  his  soul  the  con- 
nection between  what  ought  to  he  done  and  what  is 
done  with  pleasure. 

The  entire  mechanism  of  life  is  affected  when 
the  free  outflow  of  these  creative  emotions  is 
interfered  with,  whether  they  show  themselves  in 
the  play  of  children  or  in  the  affections,  or  the 
serious  work  of  adults.  It  is  not  alone  the  affec- 
tion or  the  sympathy  which  is  arrested  but  every 
mental  activity  supporting  those  higher  mani- 
festations, much  as  the  stopping  of  a  trolley  car 

189 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

for  too  long  a  time  congests  traffic  and  blocks  all 
the  cars  on  the  track  behind  it.  Just  so,  if  the 
actions  to  which  the  mind  prompts  us  are  blocked, 
those  ideas  in  the  mind  are  blocked  and  the  actual 
contractions  of  the  muscles  are  impeded,  resulting 
in  the  innumerable  forms  of  nervousness  and  in 
the  bodily  or  functional  disturbances.  The  block- 
ing of  the  libido  has  been  mentioned  previously. 
I  will  give  here  an  illustration  of  how  a  man  suf- 
fered from  an  actual  lack  of  ability  to  express  the 
finer  emotions,  because  in  his  childhood  the  op- 
portunities for  this  outlet  were  denied  to  him  by 
the  circumstances  of  his  family  environment. 

AN   EMOTIONALLY   STAEVED   MAN 

A  man  of  forty-five  came  for  analysis.  He  was 
married  and  had  eight  children  and  a  charming 
wife,  unusually  patient  with  her  nervous  husband. 
The  children  were  all  of  good  growth  and  mental 
development.  The  patient  had  been  one  of  a  large 
family,  one  of  the  older  children.  His  parents 
had  been  very  poor,  the  father  an  unskilled 
labourer,  a  hard  unyielding  man  who  was  never 
demonstrative  of  affection  for  his  wife  or  chil- 
dren, though  he  sometimes  realized  that  a  better 
education  would  have  lifted  him  up  out  of  the  con- 
dition of  day  labourer.  On  account  of  her  fre- 
quent pregnancies,  the  mother  was  unable  to  keep 
her  home  neat  or  to  care  for  her  children,  who 
ran  in  the  streets  like  homeless  dogs.    The  babies 

190 


CHILD  TRAINING 

were  often  sick,  and  some  died.  The  patient  went 
to  the  public  schools,  but  was  never  asked  to  the 
homes  of  other  boys  as  his  clothes  were  too  poor 
and  ragged.  He  seemed  to  have  been  born  with 
more  mental  ability  than  the  other  children,  those 
at  present  living  being  all  failures,  either  sick  or 
of  low  mentality.  In  his  childhood  he  was  sur- 
rounded with  illness  and  filth,  ugliness  of  scenery, 
misery  and  neglect.  He  had  no  care  from  his 
mother  and  no  one  to  give  his  affections  to,  a 
condition  necessary  for  the  spiritual  health  of 
every  child.  He  had  a  great  horror  of  his  de- 
pressing surroundings,  and  somehow  worked  his 
way  through  school  and  into  college,  and  finally 
became  a  successful  business  man.  He  was  al- 
ways very  restless  in  his  home  life,  and  while  his 
children  were  very  dear  to  him  when  they  were 
young  he  took  little  interest  in  them  after  they 
were  six  or  seven  years  of  age,  but  gave  his  affec- 
tion to  the  next  baby.  Although  he  admired  and 
respected  his  wife  for  being  a  perfect  mother  to 
her  children,  he  could  not  feel  the  warm  love  for 
her  that  he  desired  to  feel. 

As  the  years  passed  on  he  was  still  uncon- 
sciously reverting  to  the  problems  of  his  child- 
hood. There  had  been  no  one  for  him  to  love,  and 
he  still  longed  for  the  mother  love  denied  him  in 
his  youth,  for  some  one  to  love ;  but  he  could  not 
give  his  love  to  those  around  him  or  to  any  one 
else,  although  he  tried  to  find  in  a  prostitute  what 

191 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

he  lacked  in  his  home.  His  life  gradually  grew 
narrower.  As  his  mother  had  died  of  heart 
trouble,  he  had  constantly  in  his  mind  the  fear 
that  he  had  inherited  her  weak  heart.  He  began 
to  have  attacks,  with  great  difficulty  in  breathing. 
Doctors  pronounced  his  heart  strong  but  he  did 
not  believe  them.  He  was  afraid  to  go  away  from 
home,  fearing  one  of  his  attacks  would  come  on 
and  he  would  die.  His  sufferings  grew  more  in- 
tense, and  he  felt  that  suicide  or  insanity  awaited 
him.  He  had  married  his  first  love,  and  his  con- 
duct in  the  long  run  had  been  faithful  to  her,  but 
his  fidelity  brought  him  no  comfort.  All  his  crea- 
tive activities  in  children  and  in  large  financial 
successes  were  no  satisfaction  to  him.  Analysis 
revealed  him  still  struggling  to  express  his  child- 
ish emotions,  blocked  by  his  unhappy  young  years 
and  to  make  them  free  to  go  forth  from  himself 
to  others,  to  his  wife  and  children.  He  could  not 
love  as  a  man. 

Not  being  able  to  love  as  a  man  should  love 
implies  that  there  are  certain  reactions  on  the 
part  of  adults  which  a  child  looks  for.  The  child 
rightly  expects  his  mother  to  do  certain  things  to 
and  for  him.  This  patient,  who  had  not  received 
when  a  child  the  attentions  which  a  child  has  a 
right  to  expect  from  his  mother,  had  still  in  his 
unconscious  what  might  at  least  be  compared  to 
a  tension  so  formed  that  it  could  only  be  relaxed 
by  a  reaction,  characteristically  maternal,  on  his 

192 


CHILD  TRAINING 

mother's  part.  It  was  the  lack  of  this  relaxation 
in  his  childhood  which  caused  it  to  play  so  great 
and  so  detrimental  a  role  in  his  middle  age.  For 
example,  he  dreamed  that  he  was  taking  dinner 
with  the  President  in  a  toy  house,  and  he  dreamed 
of  other  very  childish  activities.  The  existence  of 
these  thoughts  in  his  dreams  revealed  his  essen- 
tial childishness,  which  did  not,  however,  prevent 
his  being  a  successful  man  with  very  large  inter- 
ests in  the  business  world.  But  in  his  family  he 
not  only  affected  more  his  younger  children,  find- 
ing them  more  companionable,  but  he  expected 
from  his  wife  a  variety  of  appreciation  which 
usually  a  child  gets  from  his  mother  and  no  com- 
pletely adult  man  looks  for  from  his  wife.  Thus 
we  get  a  clearer  idea  of  the  nature  of  emotions 
that  are  intrinsically  childish.  They  are  relaxa- 
tions of  tensions  that  are  fixed  in  childhood  upon 
ideas  that  generally  occur  only  in  childhood. 
When  such  fixations  occur,  and  persist  into  adult- 
hood, they  account  for  most  of  the  discontent  and 
dissatisfaction  which  clouds  their  spirits  and 
makes  futile  even  material  success  and  the  unsel- 
fish devotion  of  a  loving  wife. 

This  patient  was  still,  in  spite  of  his  brilliant 
business  career,  carrying  the  burden  of  his  child- 
ish misery,  which  had  turned  his  affections  inward 
toward  himself.  Because  of  his  fixations  he  could 
not  liberate  his  entire  libido  upon  the  adult  world 
in  which  he  lived. 

193 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

In  his  case,  the  buried  creative  emotions,  which 
had  been  so  thwarted  and  rebuffed  whenever  he 
turned  to  his  parents  for  sympathy  or  under- 
standing were  plainly  evident  in  his  manner  of 
speaking  and  thinking  and  in  the  symptoms  of  his 
attacks.  The  usual  prescription  of  nerve  tonics, 
rest  and  change  made  him  much  worse,  as  they 
increased  the  emotional  content  which  he  was  at 
best  unable  to  express.  Plainly  he  had  been  a 
victim  of  his  environment.  It  w^as  surprising  that 
he  was  not  understood  before  the  psychoanalytic 
investigation  was  begun. 

The  task  of  resurrecting  the  feelings  which  have 
been  buried  in  the  unconscious  is  no  easy  one  but 
it  is  one  of  the  most  gratifying.  In  spite  of  the 
weeds  and  the  rubbish  which  have  accumulated 
for  years,  blocking  the  progress  of  the  libido,  we 
know  in  each  case  that  the  urge  of  life  exists  and 
that  it  needs  only  to  be  freed  from  obstruction  to 
give  it  the  productiveness  which  evolution  de- 
mands of  it. 

The  chief  problem  in  social  living  is  the  exter- 
nalization  of  the  libido  in  such  a  way  that  all  the 
individuals  composing  society  may  live  their  lives 
to  the  utmost.  The  obstructions  which  individuals 
and  society  place  in  the  way  are  not  all  necessary. 
If  the  unnecessary  ones  were  entirely  removed 
from  the  lives  of  children  the  next  generation 
would  be  a  superior  type  of  humanity. 


194 


CHAPTER  X 

MUSCLE   EEOTISM 

Alij  animals,  especially  young  ones,  experience 
peculiar  sensations  of  a  pleasurable  nature  when 
using  their  muscles  in  a  manner  which  we  call 
playing.  The  frisking  of  a  kitten,  the  gambol  of 
young  lambs,  the  racing  of  colts  in  the  pasture, 
the  ceaseless  movements  of  children,  a  gleam  in 
the  eyes,  certain  involuntary  movements  impulsive 
and  quick,  sudden  springs,  wild  leaps,  show  the 
irresistible  and  dynamic  power  of  the  driving 
force  within  prompting  movement  and  allowing 
the  energy  escape  and  free  play.  After  a  period 
of  rest  the  animal  starts  up  again,  dashing  off, 
occasionally  rushing  in  a  blind  fury  of  passion, 
like  a  runaway  horse,  unable  to  stop  in  a  mad 
race  with  destruction  which  if  it  meets  with  no 
obstruction  runs  on  and  on  until  exhausted.  It 
is  said  that  a  horse  that  has  once  run  away  can 
never  again  be  trusted;  he  has  felt  the  wild  ex- 
hilaration in  excess  of  motion.  What  is  the  satis- 
faction felt  by  the  horse  that  when  once  felt  he 
will  seek  again?  What  is  the  pleasure  the  kitten 
feels  in  scampering  around  the  floor,  chasing 
imaginary  mice  ?  College  athletics  afford  a  simi- 
lar outlet  of  energy.    It  is  not  for  the  sake  of  exer- 

195 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

cise  to  keep  a  healthful  flow  of  blood  over  the 
body,  that  a  boy  will  undergo  sacrifices  in  train- 
ing, in  dieting,  in  giving  up  drinking  or  smoking, 
all  the  while  looking  forward  to  the  game  with 
the  keenest  anticipation.  Dancing  is  another  in- 
stance of  the  great  joy  in  motion  with  the  rhyth- 
mic melody  of  the  music  adding  to  the  emotional 
and  physical  outlet. 

It  seems  as  though  in  nature's  forces,  in  the 
wind,  electricity,  radio-activity,  there  is  always 
motion.  The  energy  of  the  universe  is  expressed 
in  motion,  and  from  the  sun,  the  source  of  energy, 
comes  the  power  which  promotes  growth  and  life 
which  is  motion.  We  speak  of  time  as  motion 
when  we  say:  ^'Time  moves  on;  time  flies,''  and 
our  conception  of  life  is  a  constant  moving  on. 
Therefore,  when  we  command  the  child  to  sit  down 
and  be  quiet,  in  reality  we  are  telling  the  child  to 
kill  a  part  of  himself — we  are  telling  time  to  stop, 
to  stand  still.  We  cannot  stop  the  hidden  forces 
of  nature  in  motion  described  as  energy,  as  when 
the  wind  blows  a  tornado,  or  the  electricity  flashes 
in  the  thunder  cloud.  We  can  only  control  them 
and  use  them  to  our  advantage,  but  as  in  the  blast 
of  the  tempest,  the  outburst  of  the  volcano,  the 
convulsion  of  the  earthquake,  these  mighty  forces 
bid  us  defiance,  as  though  the  tiny  atoms  of  power 
in  man  were  of  a  thing  apart  from  nature  itself. 
So,  in  the  onrush  of  life  in  the  adolescent  years 
we   are   powerless   to    prevent   the   tremendous 

196 


MUSCLE  EEOTISM 

strength  of  the  instinct  of  reproduction.  It  must 
be  guided  or  led  into  other  forms  of  energy,  lifted 
up  out  of  the  gross  sexual  into  work  or  business 
interests,  science,  art,  literature  or  whatever 
natural  tastes  and  ability  a  person  has. 


SUBLIMATION" 

The  expending  of  this  energy  in  other  forms 
we  call,  technically  speaking,  a  sublimation.  It 
must  be  expended,  it  must  come  out,  it  cannot  be 
repressed,  stifled  or  shut  in.  It  is  impossible  to 
do  so  without  creating  perversions  of  character 
and  ruining  health.  The  most  remarkable  thing  is 
that  parents,  teachers,  people  in  general,  cannot 
understand  this.  A  mother  punishes  her  child  by 
making  it  sit  quietly  in  a  chair  for  half  an  hour, 
an  eternity  to  a  child,  and  in  about  two  minutes 
the  child  says :  ' '  Mother,  I  ^vdsh  you  would  spank 
me,  then  I  could  go  and  play."  On  former  occa- 
sions a  spanking  had  been  administered,  and  the 
child  sent  out  after  sobs  mistaken  for  repentance 
— of  which  a  child  knows  nothing.  A  few  more 
minutes  and  the  child  says :  ^* Mother,  please  spank 
me,  then  it  will  be  over  and  I  can  go  out."  The 
mother  concludes  spankings  are  failures  and  won- 
ders what  other  forms  of  punishment  would  be 
more  effective.  The  sins  of  omission  or  commis- 
sion have  left  no  impression  on  the  childish  mind. 
To  the  child  it  is  only  something  which  mothers 

197 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

do,  **biit  when  I  am  big  I  will  make  her  sorry,'' 
runs  through  the  promises  of  revenge  which  a 
child  often  feels  from  the  parent's  unjust  and 
ignorant  discipline.  The  child  cannot  help  being 
a  child,  he  must  be  active,  restless,  always  want- 
ing to  do  something,  but  if  left  to  himself  from  the 
hour  of  his  birth,  that  is,  not  rocked,  trotted  and 
tended,  he  will  grow  up  with  more  resources  in 
himself,  his  brain  will  be  more  active  in  finding 
and  searching  out  schemes  for  play  and  make- 
believes  of  childhood. 

The  complaint  is  frequently  made  that  w^e  can- 
not bring  up  our  children  as  we  were  brought  up. 
No,  of  course  not.  In  our  childhood  life  we  were 
not  surrounded  with  motor-cycles,  automobiles, 
moving-picture  shows,  plays  suggestive  of  sexual 
problems,  crowded  apartment  house  life.  If  you 
tempt  a  baby  with  diamonds  it  will  cry  for  them, 
without  any  idea  of  their  precious  value.  If  your 
boy  is  brought  up  amidst  other  boys  who  are  in- 
dulged with  money,  automobiles,  tobacco,  even 
cocktails  and  late  hours,  of  course  he  v/ill  cry  for 
them.  The  daughter  who  lives  amidst  rouge,  arti- 
ficially waved  hair,  exaggerated  styles  of  dress, 
exciting  novels,  will  not  find  her  joy  and  pleasure 
in  muscle-activity  of  housework,  out-of-door 
games,  walking  and  an  open-air  life.  Not  all 
muscular  activities  in  youth  are  due  to  'Hhe  call 
of  the  wild,"  nor  are  they  always  accompanied 
by  pleasurable  sensations.     It  is  when  a  child 

198 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

without  any  apparent  reason,  leaps,  turns  somer- 
saults, goes  through  various  gymnastics,  runs 
when  he  might  just  as  well  walk,  that  we  find  the 
muscle  erotic.  He  climbs  anything  he  can  find 
to  climb,  begs  for  work  when  he  really  means  some 
kind  of  muscular  activity.  School  is  irksome  be- 
cause he  must  sit  still,  the  athletics  are  the  sole 
attraction  but  he  frequently  fails  in  them  because 
he  does  not  use  his  muscles  to  strengthen  them  but 
to  play  with  them.  He  enjoys  boxing  and  wrest- 
ling, not  to  conquer  with  skill  but  in  an  easy 
struggle,  sort  of  a  make-believe  wrestle.  He  is' 
always  ready  to  jump  and  run  on  any  errand,  but 
seldom  accomplishes  it  well.  Horseback  riding  is 
a  favourite,  for  he  gets  muscular  activity  without 
any  effort  on  his  part.  Swimming  he  likes  fairly 
well,  but  when  swimming  he  must  keep  moving, 
and  he  likes  to  move  by  fits  and  starts  with  sudden 
springs.  He  sleeps  heavily  and  awakens  with 
dijBftculty. 

The  muscle-erotic  individual  does  not  possess 
an  intellectual  or  artistic  temperament ;  he  is  usu- 
ally tall,  more  especially  from  the  waist  down. 
He  is  fond  of  dancing;  I  have  seen  the  face  light 
up  then  with  a  brilliant  expression  never  seen  at 
any  other  time.  I  recall  a  six-year-old  girl,  a 
muscle  erotic.  She  never  walked  if  she  could 
possibly  run,  and  a  smile  came  as  she  started  to 
run.  It  was  remarked  that  she  always  looked  so 
pleased  with  herself  as  she  ran.    '*What  are  you 

199 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH.D 

thinking  off  she  was  asked  when  she  was  run- 
ning; no  answer,  but  a  shy  look  and  a  drawing 
away  from  the  questioner  as  though  unable  to  tell 
her  thoughts.  A  fourteen-year-old  brother  had 
the  same  inclination  to  run  and  keep  up  the  same 
restless,  muscular  movements.  The  little  girl  was 
very  thin,  she  was  given  many  tonics  of  iron  and 
other  supposed  strengthening  properties;  the 
brother  was  also  thin,  he  ran  so  much  his  health 
suffered  seriously.  In  vain  the  father  coaxed,  at- 
tempted to  bribe,  and  then  to  punish  them  both, 
in  order  to  make  them  walk,  and  be  quiet. 

I  remember  one  summer  when  the  family  ar- 
rived at  their  summer  home  where  there  was  a 
small  lake  half  a  mile  around;  the  brother  in- 
stantly jumped  from  the  carriage  and  disap- 
peared. Later  he  was  discovered  running  around 
this  lake,  and  panting,  breathless,  with  heart 
rapidly  beating  and  ignoring  the  calls  to  stop  un- 
til he  was  forcibly  caught.  ^'What  are  you  doing 
this  for?"  demanded  the  perplexed  father.  The 
boy  had  no  idea  why,  he  was  enjoying  it  hugely 
and  was  as  excited  as  a  race  horse.  He  was  so 
pale  from  excitement  his  father  was  alarmed  and 
put  the  boy  to  bed,  while  the  boy  struggled  to  get 
away  and  declared  if  he  were  confined  he  would 
have  a  fit.  I  have  often  recalled  that  case  when 
working  years  afterwards  with  epileptics,  for  they 
cannot  get  out  to  the  surface  the  inward  excite- 
ment they  feel,  and  do  have  fits. 

200 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 


A  MUSCLE   EEOTIC 


An  exaggerated  case  was  a  fifteen-year-old  boy 
who  had  been  giving  his  parents  considerable  trou- 
ble as  he  approached  adolescence.  He  lived  in  a 
city  with  his  father  and  mother  and  two  younger 
sisters  whom  he  continually  teased.  The  parents 
found  him  unusually  restless  as  a  child.  The 
father,  a  business  man  with  large  interests,  left 
much  of  the  training  of  his  children  to  his  wife, 
who  was  a  very  capable  and  intelligent  woman. 
In  taking  the  history  of  the  case  I  learned  that 
the  boy  when  born  refused  to  nurse  his  mother. 
No  amount  of  patience  or  skill  could  make  the 
baby  take  the  nipple  in  his  mouth,  but  he  nursed 
readily  from  a  bottle.  From  the  parents'  point 
of  view  he  never  was  a  child  they  could  feel  com- 
fortable with,  as  with  his  two  sisters.  They  told 
of  obscene  stories  he  had  imparted  to  a  little  girl, 
of  perverted  sexual  wishes  he  had  been  overheard 
to  express,  of  stealing  money  and  an  Ingersoll 
watch  which  he  tried  to  sell.  When  thirteen  he 
was  expelled  from  a  boarding-school  for  smoking, 
and  was  sent  to  school  in  his  home  city  and  lived 
at  home.  He  was  a  very  disturbing  member  of 
the  family,  teasing  his  sisters,  annoying  his 
mother  by  careless  and  untidy  ways,  troubling  his 
father  with  demands  for  privileges  which  only  an 
older  boy  should  enjoy.  These  were  denied  and 
the  boy  was  very  unhappy  and  ran  away  to  a 

201 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHILD 

neighbouring  town,  was  lonely  and  telephoned 
where  he  was,  and  was  glad  to  return  home. 

The  home  conditions  were  made  a  little  stricter 
as  the  parents  felt  such  a  misdemeanour  could 
not  pass  unnoticed.  The  father  administered 
corporal  punishment,  asking  the  boy  first  if  he 
thought  that  would  help  him  to  be  a  better  boy. 
The  boy  seemed  very  penitent  and  said  perhaps 
it  would.  But  in  a  few  more  months  he  again 
ran  away,  and  again  the  father  brought  him  home 
with  more  admonitions  against  wrong-doing.  The 
third  time  the  boy  ran  away  he  went  farther  and 
concealed  his  whereabouts  from  his  family,  but 
wrote  to  a  little  girl  he  was  fond  of.  She,  wdth  a 
woman's  intuition  of  the  suffering  his  family  must 
be  enduring  without  knowledge  of  their  son,  told 
them.  The  father  followed  up  the  boy,  and  just 
in  time  to  rescue  him  from  a  position  which  would 
have  taken  him  to  the  war  zone  of  Europe,  sought 
medical  aid,  and  brought  him  for  an  analysis  of 
his  mental  condition  which  caused  the  running  and 
uncontrolled  escape  of  the  nervous  energy. 

After  his  confidence  was  partially  gained,  the 
boy's  point  of  view  was  gradually  drawn  out  as 
foUows:  He  was  not  happy  as  a  child,  never  al- 
lowed to  do  anything.  Was  always  being  pun- 
ished, sometimes  licked,  sometimes  scolded. 
When  five  years  old  was  in  New  York  for  his 
birthday,  remembered  the  train  ride,  then  to  his 
uncle's  house  on  the  Hudson  Eiver;  was  shown 

202 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

boats  on  the  river.  There  was  a  birthday  cake,  he 
wanted  more  cake,  could  not  have  it,  he  was  stub- 
born about  it,  crawled  under  the  table  and  cried. 
Remembered  trip  to  a  seaside  place,  caught  min- 
nows, saw  a  saw-mill  and  marvelled  at  the  swift 
rush  of  water,  used  to  watch  sail-boat  races.  Was 
at  Summer  Camp  for  four  years,  first  year  did  not 
get  on  well,  cried  easily,  was  fat,  but  next  year 
was  athletic  and  strong.  At  the  Country  Club, 
summers,  was  not  allowed  to  do  as  other  boys  did. 
Glad  he  was  freed  from  the  boarding-school,  it 
was  full  of  filthy  talk  and  vile  actions.  Finished 
with  all  such  stuff,  could  behave  himself  better  in 
such  respects,  sure  of  that. 

This  description  in  his  own  language,  tells  how 
things  of  his  childhood  seemed  to  the  boy.  When 
he  used  the  phrase  "marvelled  at  the  swift  rush 
of  water  ''  a  glimpse  was  afforded  of  the  uncon- 
scious. He  was  resistant,  accusing  parents  and  all 
authority  of  not  being  fair  to  him.  Whether  these 
ideas  were  just  or  were  delusions  of  persecutions 
I  could  not  tell  then,  but  I  formed  the  impression 
there  was  some  truth  in  his  assertions.  From  his 
tone  of  voice,  the  far-away  look,  his  eyes  w^ere  still 
seeing  in  memory  the  swift  rushing  water  and  still 
feeling  the  wonder  of  the  irresistible  current  driv- 
ing the  heavy  machinery  and  the  saw  cutting  its 
way  through  the  heart  of  the  massive,  stately 
trees — in  a  word,  he  was  beholding  the  wonders  of 
life.    There  was  a  great  rush  of  life  in  him  which 

203 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

made  it  too  hard  to  stand  the  restrictions  and  com- 
plaints of  home  training.  His  great  desire  was  to 
break  away  from  family  ties — to  fly  out  of  the 
home  nest  with  his  newly  grown  power. 

He  was  sent  to  board  in  the  summer  home  of  a 
family  who  understood  something  of  the  period  of 
**  storm  and  stress  ^'  through  which  he  was  pass- 
ing, and  allowed  all  the  liberty  possible.  After  he 
had  arrived  he  immediately  put  on  his  khaki 
clothes  and  announced  himself  as  ready  for 
work.  An  acre  of  lawn  had  just  been  trimmed,  so 
she  sent  him  to  the  garage  to  polish  the  auto- 
mobile. In  an  hour  there  was  an  arrival  an- 
nounced— the  boy  and  the  auto  which  he  had 
rubbed  and  wanted  to  show.  Then  it  was  time  to 
clean  and  make  himself  presentable  for  dinner, 
which  he  did.  In  the  early  evening  on  the  porch 
and  on  the  lawn  he  kept  up  a  series  of  gymnastics, 
standing  on  the  porch  railing,  leaning  far  out, 
springing  as  though  falling  and  catching  a  porch 
post  as  though  he  had  had  a  narrow  escape. 
Every  one  who  saw  him  was  startled  but  before 
the  evening  was  over  they  were  accustomed  to 
his  hairbreadth  escapes.  On  the  lawn  he  swung 
from  tree  branches;  climbing  a  tree,  he  would 
somehow  crash  from  the  top  through  the  branches 
with  yells,  but  would  be  seen  safely  dangling  from 
a  lower  branch  with  feet  near  the  ground.  A 
period  of  unrest  was  followed  by  a  quiet  spell. 
His  pipe  would  be  leisurely  filled  and  lighted,  and 

204 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

with  book,  magazine  or  newspaper  he  would 
sprawl  on  ground  or  hammock.  There  was  a 
young  kitten  which  he  was  fond  of,  but  handled 
so  roughly  we  bought  him  a  bull-dog  for  a  play- 
mate. There  was  scampering  and  chasing  over 
the  lawn  with  the  dog,  jumping,  climbing  over 
roofs,  with  quiet  spells  following,  but  of  short 
duration.  There  was  a  constant  demand  for 
money  which  he  spent  promptly,  at  various  shows, 
candy,  swimming  at  the  lake,  trips  in  every  direc- 
tion. 

He  slept  so  heavily  no  glimpses  of  the  uncon- 
scious could  be  shown  him  as  he  remembered  no 
dreams.  Telling  him  why  he  was  so  restless  was 
useless.  He  seemed  very  contented  until  he  re- 
turned from  one  of  his  afternoon  trips  off  and  was 
told  a  member  of  his  family  had  been  there  to  see 
him.  A  sullen  look  appeared  on  his  face.  ^^  Can't 
they  let  me  alone  hereV^  was  his  reply.  He  was 
unusually  quiet  that  evening,  petting  his  dog, 
smoking  his  pipe,  and  going  to  bed  early.  He  was 
not  called  early  the  next  morning  and  came  down 
about  ten  o'clock.  After  eating  breakfast  he  was 
very  restless,  going  in  and  out  of  the  house. 
Through  the  open  windows  came  an  odour  of  some- 
thing burning;  seeing  him  just  coming  in  the  front 
door  his  hostess  questioned  about  the  smell  of 
smoke.  **  It's  only  my  pipe.  Miss  K,"  he  said, 
and  again  went  out  the  door,  but  returned  in  a 
minute  shouting  the  basement  was  on  fire.     His 

205 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

hostess  called  up  the  fire  department  before  see- 
ing the  fire,  then  found  it  was  under  a  side  porch 
standing  about  six  feet  from  the  ground  and  full 
of  a  collection  of  empty  boxes,  boards,  excelsior 
and  old  newspapers ;  it  was  surrounded  by  lattice 
work;  a  glass  door,  fastened,  led  to  the  lawn,  an- 
other door  supposed  to  be  fastened  opened  into  the 
cellar  which  the  boy  called  the  basement,  but  the 
latter  door  was  not  fastened. 

The  fire  was  extinguished  before  the  fire  engines 
arrived,  as  the  house  stood  on  a  hill,  and  the  fire 
engines  had  great  difficulty  in  making  the  grade. 
The  boy,  with  a  beaming  face,  rushed  around  in 
wild  excitement,  smashed  in  the  glass  door,  ran 
with  pails  of  water.  He  ran  to  the  road  to  help 
the  fire  engines  by  guiding  them  to  the  fire,  giving 
orders  with  excited  activity.  After  the  engines 
had  assembled  and  the  yard  was  full  of  people  the 
question  was  raised  as  to  the  origin  of  the  fire, 
and  the  boy  instantly  said  it  was  spontaneous 
combustion  as  the  place  was  full  of  old  oily  rags 
and  papers.  Several  onlookers  among  the  crowd 
accepted  the  theory  of  spontaneous  combustion; 
the  Fire  Chief  heard  the  boy  loudly  announc- 
ing his  theory  of  spontaneous  combustion, 
rushed  up  to  him  and  began  asking:  ^' Where 
were  you  when  the  fire  started?  Who  was  with 
you  when  the  fire  started?  Who  was  with  you 
before  the  fire  started f  The  boy  became  very 
pale,  announced  rapidly  that  he  had  just  finished 

206 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

his  breakfast  and  was  starting  out  for  a  walk 
with  another  boy  when  he  saw  the  flames.  The 
Fire  Chief  evidently  believed  none  of  it  and  said : 
**  Young  man,  you  want  to  be  careful  that  I  do  not 
have  to  come  up  this  hill  again  or  you  will  have 
to  go  down  with  me." 

At  the  dinner  table  the  boy  again  declared  his 
explanation  of  the  fire  starting  by  spontaneous 
combustion,  but  he  happened  to  be  in  the  presence 
of  some  learned  people  who  thoroughly  under- 
stood the  principle  of  spontaneous  combustion, 
and  they  explained  to  the  boy  what  nonsense  he 
was  talking,  and  how  difficult  it  was  to  produce 
spontaneous  combustion,  as  the  professors  had 
tried  to  do  so  in  the  chemical  laboratory  but  had 
never  succeeded.  After  dinner  another  boy  said 
what  fun  they  had  had,  ^' quite  some  excitement 
and  how  quick  the  crowd  gathered,  where  did  they 
all  come  from?"  And  the  boy's  reply,  **You  bet, 
it  was  great,  but  the  people  here  make  me  sick, 
think  they  know  it  all.  Why,  of  course,  the  fire 
was  caused  by  spontaneous  combustion,  the  place 
was  just  full  of  oily  rags  and  you  know  how  easy 
they  burn,  you  cannot  go  anywhere  near  them 
with  fire  or  a  lighted  match,  and  the  sun  was  shin- 
ing in  there  hot." 

^ '  No, ' '  said  the  second  boy.  * '  I  know  there  were 
no  oily  rags  in  there,  as  last  week  it  was  very  cold, 
and  I  was  in  there  trying  to  get  some  stuff  to  start 
a  fire  in  the  fireplace.    There  was  some  excelsior 

207 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

and  old  papers,  but  no  oily  ones.    I  hate  to  touch 
oily  things.    You  can't  fool  me.'' 

The  family  concluded  to  take  a  long  auto  ride; 
it  was  Sunday  afternoon,  the  boy  refused  to  go, 
said  he  was  tired,  wanted  to  sleep,  had  hurt  him- 
self fighting  the  fire.  He  looked  pale,  sat  in  deep 
thought  with  a  peculiar  look  of  disgust  on  his 
face,  as  though  nauseated,  complained  of  feeling 
dull  from  eating  too  much.  The  family  started 
off  for  their  ride,  the  boy  put  his  dog  in  the  car, 
and  waved  good-bye.  The  housekeeper  saw  him 
working  on  a  lock  that  was  out  of  order  on  the 
bathroom  door,  and  supposed  he  went  to  his  room. 
When  the  family  returned  the  boy  was  missing. 
As  night  came  on  and  the  boy  did  not  return,  it 
was  evident  he  had  taken  a  fourth  adventure  in 
running  away.  It  was  two  days  before  he  tele- 
graphed from  a  distant  city  saying  he  would  ex- 
plain all.  We  knew  the  boy  had  no  money  and  we 
wondered  how  he  had  managed  the  financial  part 
of  his  adventure,  and  learned  later  that  he  had 
searched  for  a  cheque-book  he  had  seen  his  hostess 
using,  found  it,  filled  out  a  cheque  for  a  sum  of 
odd  dollars  and  cents ;  and  with  the  assurance  of 
youth  started  empty-handed  on  his  travels.  He 
had  asked  an  old  man  to  cash  the  cheque  on  some 
pretext  which  was  believed,  and  took  a  train  for  a 
far-distant  city.  A  realization  of  the  seriousness 
of  his  crime  came  to  him  as  he  had  to  sit  quietly 
during  the  long  train  ride.    The  child  part  of  him 

208 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

was  afraid,  he  felt  a  strong  desire  to  see  Ms  home, 
his  father  (who  was  the  most  remarkable  man  in 
the  son's  eyes),  his  little  sisters  and  his  mother 
who  he  had  formerly  felt  was  the  cause  of  his 
troubles  at  home  and  had  caused  his  earlier  run- 
aways. 

When  the  parents  saw  their  son  and  heard  his 
confession,  their  suffering  was  truly  pitiful,  but 
the  torture  which  parents  endure  with  their  way- 
ward children  cannot  be  described.     They  arose 
to  the  occasion  with  more  insight  than  we  usually 
find  in  such  cases.    They  asked  the  boy  what  he 
was  going  to  do  next;  he  answered,  ''Go  back 
and  face  the  music,''  and  felt  that  he  would  be 
received  and  forgiven  with  a  lecture  as  his  parents 
had  done  with  his  previous  escapades.    But  with 
the  knowledge  of  the  unconscious  complexes,  we 
knew  that  it  was  but  a  question  of  time  before  his 
energy  would  accumulate  and  owing  to  his  com- 
plexes it  could  not  be  used  in  legitimate  channels, 
but  that  he  would  feel  compelled  to  do  some  dan- 
gerous,  perhaps    criminal,    act   for   relief.     His 
muscle-play  was  only  a  substitute  during  the  gath- 
ering storm,  or,  to  use  a  simple  comparison,  his 
muscle-play  only  furnished  as  much  satisfaction 
to  his  energy  as  a  piece  of  candy  satisfies  our 
hunger  in  comparison  to  a  real  meal  of  meat  and 
vegetables.     Therefore,    when    he    so    willingly 
started  back  to  his  wronged  hostess,  we  knew  that 
it  was  useless  for  her  to  forgive  and  give  him 

209 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

another  chance  to  do  better  in  the  old-fashioned 
way.  There  would  be  a  repetition.  The  boy  was 
running  away  from  himself,  from  his  childhood, 
from  the  great  love  of  his  parents,  for  they  were 
adorable  people  in  a  happy  home  life,  from  the 
temptations  to  remain  a  child  with  them  and  give 
up  to  laziness  and  be  a  "girl-boy.''  He  did  not 
know  these  were  the  reasons  of  his  attempts  to  run 
away — that  the  great  urge  of  life  frightened  him. 
When  at  home  he  ran  away;  when  away  he  ran 
home.  These  reasons  existed  in  the  imconscious. 
We  could  see  his  symptomatic  acts,  but  there 
had  been  no  convincing  dreams  to  help  him  to  get 
the  necessary  emotional  acts,  for  the  intellectual 
knowledge  is  not  sufficient,  it  must  be  felt  on  the 
principle  that  a  singed  cat  dreads  the  fire.  He 
had  previously  been  told  that  a  mind  that  allows 
itself  such  weak  indulgences  would  never  gain 
strength  and  would  have  a  jelly-fish  character, 
just  soft  and  yielding ;  he  had  scoffed  at  the  idea, 
such  preaching  he  pretended  did  not  interest  him, 
as  he  could  do  anything,  was  quite  omnipotent  in 
his  own  estimation.  I  knew  that  underneath  the 
incorrigible  exterior  was  a  very  soft  baby  heart, 
but  he  had  it  too  well  covered  by  his  muscle 
eroticism  to  permit  work  upon  it.  Something  had 
to  be  done  to  make  an  impression  more  lasting 
and  convincing  than  mere  words.  He  would  have 
to  see  the  results  of  minds  untilled,  choked  up 
with  words  instead  of  thoughts,  minds  that  were 

210 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

not  producing  but  shirking.  His  New  England 
home  people  would  not  understand  that  prompt 
measures  must  be  taken,  but  the  responsibility 
must  be  met.  The  boy  arrived  and  approached 
with  his  usual  jaunty  air,  evidently  he  was  ready 
to  frisk  and  play  after  his  train  ride.  He  was 
taken  to  an  office,  the  laws  of  his  country  were 
read  to  him,  the  logic  of  law  explained  to  him 
and  the  legal  penalty  of  his  misdemeanour.  He 
listened  but  was  not  much  affected;  he  was  then 
taken  to  a  hospital,  shown  the  nervous  wrecks 
of  humanity;  he  looked  on  them  with  supreme 
contempt.  He  was  not  showing  negativism,  his 
libido  was  not  separated  or  split,  it  was  all  in 
himself,  and  called  for  measures  to  act  as  a  purga- 
tive for  his  emotions.  He  was  left  in  the  hospital 
all  night,  his  clothes  locked  up  and  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  he  was  obliged  to  face  a  reality 
and  could  not  run  away  from  it. 

The  next  morning  there  was  the  welcome  sight 
of  tears ;  the  emotions  were  working,  not  the  lack 
of  emotional  reaction,  the  apathy  which  we  had 
feared.  He  declared  he  could  eat  nothing  and 
begged  to  go  away.  It  was  just  noon.  With- 
drawing to  an  adjoining  room  I  saw  a  generous 
tray  of  food — soup,  meat,  vegetables  and  dessert 
— carried  to  him.  He  ate  with  good  appetite — 
the  emotions  were  not  disturbed  too  much.  In  the 
afternoon  visit  no  questions  were  asked.  We 
waited  for  him  to  volunteer  information  beyond 

211 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

asking  to  return  to  his  former  hostess.  She  had 
refused  to  see  him  again,  so  he  could  not  go  there. 
He  asked :  ^ '  If  my  father  returns  her  the  money  I 
took  why  can't  I  go  back  there?"  His  parents 
always  forgave  him.  Why  should  not  every  one! 
The  second  day  he  was  running  around  the  corri- 
dor amusing  the  patients  with  his  gymnastics,  and 
again  asking  for  work,  was  told  to  polish  the  floors. 
The  third  day  he  was  taken  from  the  hospital 
and  put  in  charge  of  a  private  male  nurse,  a  young 
man  who  accompanied  the  boy  on  trips  around 
the  city,  living  in  rooms  and  eating  out  in  res- 
taurants with  the  intention  of  providing  an  envi- 
ronment sufficiently  interesting  to  call  out  the 
libido  from  himself.  The  sightseeing  succeeded  in 
arousing  his  energy,  but  resulted  in  a  greater  de- 
sire for  freedom.  The  unconscious  pictures  were 
very  hard  to  get  from  him.  A  fragment  showed 
him  as  riding  wooden  horses  at  a  merry-go-round 
— ^no  life — no  life  in  the  life  he  was  living — ^not  real 
— going  around  in  a  circle,  was  the  way  life  seemed 
to  him.  He  complained  that  he  could  never  do 
what  other  boys  did  (owning  an  automobile,  keep- 
ing late  hours)  and  that  his  parents  always  treated 
him  like  a  two-year-old.  But,  really,  the  father 
had  made  the  mistake  of  making  a  companion  of 
the  boy  in  talking  and  explaining  business  affairs, 
politics  and  subjects  for  adult  life.  The  boy  ad- 
mired the  father's  keen  business  ability,  but  of 
course  his  mind  was  not  capable  of  work  equal  to 

212 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

his  father's  so  that  the  father's  conversation  be- 
came very  irksome  to  him. 

Another  glimpse  into  the  unconscious  was: 
**Went  to  school  in  N.  Y.,  strict  school,  they  beat 
me,  a  book  was  given  us  to  study,  *Bugs  of  Central 
America.'  I  didn't  open  the  book.  Every  after- 
noon after  school  I  went  home  and  slept  on  the 
sidewalk."  He  symbolized  his  analysis  as  the 
*'Bugs."  Bugs  were  a  nuisance,  he  said,  and  he 
paid  no  attention  to  his  analysis  (didn't  open  the 
book).  Life  was  hard  (sidewalk).  No  one  no- 
ticed him,  public  passed  him  by. 

I  sent  him,  with  his  nurse,  to  the  theatres  to 
watch  his  reactions  to  plays  that  I  had  seen;  one 
called  ^^ Tiger  Rose,"  a  play  with  a  murder.  He 
saw  the  play,  and  sure  enough,  the  murder  was 
the  part  which  interested  him.  He  was  getting 
very  tired  of  his  man-nurse,  and  the  unconscious 
thoughts  seized  upon  the  plot  of  the  play  to  ex- 
press the  boy's  wishes  to  get  rid  of  the  nurse,  said 
he  felt  as  though  he  was  always  being  followed— 
had  no  freedom.  His  obtaining  money  dishon- 
estly was  the  sense  of  guilt  which  gave  him  the 
feeling  of  always  being  followed.  I  did  not  want 
him  to  have  a  sense  of  guilt,  but  rather  to  realize 
his  mistake.  If  that  and  the  feeling  of  being 
followed  continued  there  would  be  another  kind 
of  trouble  started.  He  knew  we  could  neither 
trust  him  nor  could  he  trust  himself.  He  made 
no  effort  to  earn  confidence,  but  made  up  his  mind 

213 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

he  had  to  endure  the  being  watched.  Each  day  he 
was  more  listless  and  uninterested.  During  the 
hours  of  analysis  certain  subjects  brought  the  re- 
action of  painful  emotions,  seen  in  the  eyes.  He 
had  not  attempted  another  flight,  but  the  idea  was 
at  work  in  his  mind  as  shown  in  the  following 
page  which  he  wrote.  *'Was  in  swimming,  swam 
out  pretty  far.  Suddenly  a  shark  grabbed  my  leg 
and  pulled  me  out  to  sea.  Was  unconscious  for  a 
while,  and  woke  up  in  the  shark's  cave  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  ocean  somewhere.  I  talked  with  him 
a  long  time  jollying  him  along.  He  said  I  was 
a  pretty  good  fellow  and  too  skinny  to  eat  so  he 
would  let  me  go.  I  asked  him  how  I  was  to  get 
away,  and  he  said  I  would  have  to  swim  for  it. 
So  I  was  just  about  to  dive  into  the  water  from  a 
rock  when  I  was  awakened. ' ' 

Although  he  called  this  a  dream  it  was  merely 
thoughts  he  had  written  down  to  answer  my  de- 
mand. *^To  swim  for  it,"  was  the  same  as  to 
run  away  in  his  mind.  There  was  no  danger  of 
his  attempting  that,  his  life  was  not  a  pleasant 
one  for  him  just  then.  He  would  undoubtedly  find 
a  way  of  escaping  it,  but  not  by  running,  the 
alternative  would  be  illness  which  he  might  feign 
or  which  he  might  actually  accomplish.  He  had  at 
times  complained  of  hay  fever,  which  brought  in- 
flamed eyes  and  running  nose  with  frequent  sneez- 
ing and  the  symptoms  were  beginning  again.  Un- 
known to  the  boy,  I  had  made  arrangements  for 

214 


MUSCLE  EEOTISM 

him  to  go  the  next  day  with  his  nurse  to  a  country 
place  with  a  good  trout  stream.  When  the  next 
visit  was  due  he  did  not  come,  and  the  nurse 
telephoned  that  ''the  boy^s  stomach  is  upset.''  I 
went  to  him,  found  him  in  bed,  refusing  food, 
only  an  orange  for  breakfast.  He  appeared  very 
dull  and  sleepy,  temperature  of  101°.  There  were 
some  rales  in  the  right  lung.  The  nurse  was  out, 
boy  was  alone. 

**Wake  up,''  I  said,  ''I  had  expected  to  send 
you  away  today." 

He  opened  his  eyes.  ''Well,  the  sooner,  the  bet- 
ter; where  am  I  going?" 

I  explained. 

He  lost  interest.  "To  the  country?  Nothing 
to  do  there,  who  wants  to  fish?  I  don't."  His 
eyes  closed  again,  the  nurse  returned.  I  went  into 
the  adjoining  room  to  watch.  The  nurse  stood  by 
the  bedside.  "I  thought  you  would  be  up  and 
dressed;  how  can  we  make  the  2:15  train  out  of 
town!"  No  answer  from  the  boy,  and  when  the 
nurse  moved  him,  no  response.  "Well,  you  have 
suddenly  turned  into  a  boy  of  wood.  What  is  it 
you  do  not  like?"  No  answer  from  the  boy,  but 
he  heard  the  footsteps  of  the  retreating  nurse, 
opened  his  eyes  and  made  all  manner  of  faces  at 
him — putting  out  his  tongue,  thumb  to  his  nose. 

That  muscle  movement  afforded  some  satisfac- 
tion ;  that  was  the  moment  to  get  an  answer.  ' '  Get 
up  now  and  dress,  I  am  going  to  take  you  to  a 

215 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHE^D 

very  nice  place  where  you  will  be  taken  care  of, 
lots  of  good  things  to  eat,  and  you  will  soon  feel 
fine."  The  answer  came  promptly,  **What  good 
will  it  do  r  ^  ^ '  Well,  I  am  going  to  try  you  and  see 
what  good  it  will  do. ' '  He  was  up  in  a  minute,  and 
in  an  hour  was  comfortably^  lying  in  a  dainty  white 
bed  in  a  pretty  private  room  of  a  hospital,  a  sweet- 
faced  nurse  smiling  at  him.  ^  ^  Gee,  I  wish  mother 
could  see  me  now,  she  never  believes  me  when  I 
tell  her  I  am  sick. ' '  Wise  mother,  she  knew  him. 
He  was  not  sick  now,  although  his  temperature 
had  risen  to  103.  The  next  morning  it  was  normal 
and  remained  so,  but  he  was  being  treated  for 
pneumonia,  the  rales  continued.  He  smiled  at  me. 
*'I  have  a  nice  nurse,''  he  said.  Just  then  a  fire 
engine  went  clanging  down  the  street,  he  sprang 
up  and  watched  it.  The  next  day  he  asked  for 
fruit,  and  magazines,  watched  the  fire  engines, 
employed  his  muscles  in  throwing  newspapers, 
and  everything  throwable,  in  the  corner.  Looked 
very  happy  and  contented,  no  temperature,  but 
rales  continued  for  two  weeks.  The  doctor 
jokingly  said,  *  ^  See  if  you  can  dry  up  those  rales 
as  quickly  as  you  dropped  his  temperature."  I 
answered,  **I  will,"  and  then  said  to  the  boy, 
**  Just  as  soon  as  you  are  well  I  am  going  to  take 
you  to  Atlantic  City."  He  beamed.  *^I  have 
never  been  there  and  always  wanted  to  go.  Now 
I  have  something  to  get  well  for. ' '  The  next  day 
the  doctor  telephoned — ^*I  do  not  know  how  that 

216 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

boy  has  managed  it,  but  the  rales  have  all  cleared 
up,  there  is  no  sound  of  them.  You  could  take 
him  away  tomorrow  if  you  want  to.''  He  was 
pretty  weak  from  the  confinement,  and  as  soon  as 
the  auto  started  he  began  sneezing,  blowing  his 
nose,  with  very  red  eyes.  It  was  a  day's  ride,  and 
an  hour  before  the  end  of  it  his  ^^hay  fever" 
stopped.  The  next  morning  he  told  me  a  genuine 
dream : 

'^I  was  fishing  tvith  father.  We  came  to  a 
mountain,  went  down  the  mountain  in  an  a/uto- 
mobile  with  a  lake  full  of  musUrats.  They  came 
towards  me,  I  tried  to  get  away  from  them,  they 
chased  after  me,  I  hit  them  with  my  hands.  I  felt 
one  of  the  horrible  things  against  my  face — ugh, 
it  was  so  cold  and  wet." 

In  ** fishing  with  father"  the  boy  identified  him- 
self with  his  father,  and  when  he  comes  to  diffi- 
culties (mountain)  he  is  not  able  to  overcome 
them.  Father  has  much  money  to  spend  and  the 
boy's  craving  for  money  shows  how  weak  he  is. 
He  gets  in  trouble  (the  lake)  and  is  pursued  by 
low-bred  wishes  (muskrats).  They  pursue  him 
and  he  feels  the  horror  against  his  hand — in  self- 
abuse — and  against  his  face — his  cheek  and  dis- 
honesty. The  muskrats  symbolize  the  low  form  of 
life  he  descended  to  in  trying  to  get  away  and  go- 
ing so  fast.  The  muskrats  were  very  helpful  to 
him,  when  temptations  came  we  reminded  him  of 
the  muskrats  chasing  him.    He  agreed  that  he  did 

217 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

feel  that  he  was  being  chased  by  something  and 
felt  that  he  would  like  to  get  as  far  away  as  pos- 
sible. The  low-bred  thoughts  in  the  form  of  musk- 
rats  made  a  deeper  impression  than  any  previous 
pictures  from  his  unconscious.  He  gradually  saw 
that  to  get  away  from  them  he  would  have  to  do 
some  higher  thinking,  and  concluded  to  go  to 
school  and  behave  himself  as  other  boys,  so  that 
he  could  fill  a  superior  position  when  he  began 
to  work.  He  often  begged  to  be  allowed  to  begin 
working  for  his  living — the  romantic  dream  of 
youth,  and  the  boy  began  to  see  that  the  way  to  get 
away  from  childhood  was  not  by  running  but  by 
letting  time  leave  it  behind.  He  was  not  anxious 
to  go  to  school  but  saw  it  as  a  necessity. 

We  selected  a  large  school  with  plenty  of  space 
to  roam  in  and  he  began  quite  full  of  enthusiasm. 
Daily  letters  showed  he  was  struggling  with  home- 
sickness, and  the  difficulty  he  was  having  in  ad- 
justing himself  to  the  rules  and  regulations  of 
school  discipline.  His  letters  were  full  of  wants, 
mostly  for  money,  and  praises  of  the  school. 
Some  letters  were  written  in  a  very  regular  hand, 
others  very  scrawling  and  unformed,  showing  ex- 
actly how  his  moods  changed,  from  wild  and  rest- 
less to  more  comfortable.  He  rode  every  day  for 
two  hours,  which  was  a  great  help,  he  groomed 
his  horse  and  was  in  constant  motion,  but  wrestled 
so  much  with  his  room-mate  that  he  had  to  room 
alone.    There  were  no  dreams.    He  began  to  feel 

218 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

tired  of  Ms  school,  complained  that  he  was  out  of 
everything  as  he  was  not  heavy  enough  for  ath- 
letics.    Just  then  the  wave  of  influenza  passed 
over  the  country.     A  few  boys  in  the  school  of 
nearly  five  hundred  had  it.    The  school  was  closed, 
most  of  the  boys  went  home,  the  boy's  father  con- 
cluded to  leave  him  at  school  and  wrote  him  rather 
a  severe  letter  for  not  controlling  his  restlessness. 
Hq  wrote  me  and  said,  ''Had  a  letter  from  Dad 
which  nearly  knocked  me  out.''    The  next  morn- 
ing a  telegram  from  the  school  announced:  ''J. 
has  a  mild  case  of  Influenza."     A  visit  to  the 
school  showed  a  temperature  of  103.    The  various 
members  of  his  family  were  advised  to  send  tele- 
grams and  letters  of  sympathy  to  him.    I  wanted 
to  watch  the  effect  on  him.    His  temperature  fell 
to  101  and  then  to  normal  two  days  from  the 
receipt   of   the   telegrams.     After   the    holidays, 
which  were  spent  with  his  family,  he  lost  the 
hardy  colour  in  his  face.     Whether  it  was  the 
Southern  climate  of  his  home,  or  being  too  close 
to  mother,  which  aroused  his  unconscious  baby 
desire,  I  was  not  sure.    A  rosy-faced  boy  had  said 
good-bye,  and  a  pale-faced  boy  returned.    Riding 
was  not  allowed  by  the  school  authorities  in  Janu- 
ary and  February,  as  they  feared  his  horse  might 
slip  and  fall  on  the  ice.    The  boy  wrote  that  many 
boys  were  leaving  and  he  wanted  to  go  too,  that 
the  school  was  too  large,  he  was  not  popular  with 
the  boys,  no  one  noticed  him.    His  type  of  muscle 

219 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

craving  was  not  shared  by  the  other  boys,  they  did 
not  want  to  be  forever  wrestling,  twisting  and 
climbing.  He  began  to  criticize  the  school,  but 
most  of  the  boys  were  loyal  to  it. 

I  decided  to  remove  him  to  a  smaller  school 
where  he  would  have  more  personal  supervision 
and  the  energy  escaping  through  his  muscle-play 
would  have  to  be  put  in  his  school  work.  He  was 
so  much  improved  I  knew  the  running  away  had 
stopped,  and  while  the  confinement  of  the  small 
school  would  be  hard  for  him  at  first,  he  needed  it. 
When  I  told  him  he  could  change  schools  he  was 
delighted,  but  after  a  week  at  the  smaller  school 
he  was  again  ill,  and  had  to  be  sent  to  a  hospital 
for  a  certain  form  of  indigestion.  He  begged  to 
be  allowed  to  work,  he  could  never  go  back  to  that 
school.  It  took  three  weeks  to  get  him  into  shape 
to  go  back  to  school  again.  In  tliis  struggle  the 
following  dream  was  of  great  assistance:  "'/  was 
floating  through  the  air,  every  time  I  landed  I  came 
down  very  easily  and  was  not  hurt  any,  then  I 
would  rise  again  and  fly  through  space  and  down 
I  would  come  to  earth  hut  was  never  hurt/*  His 
unconscious  told  me  that  we  had  better  make  the 
terra  firma  more  attractive  so  he  would  stay  on 
it.  The  next  vacation  he  spent  with  only  one 
parent  who  was  instructed  to  let  the  boy  go  day 
and  night  without  any  guidance,  just  to  see  what 
he  would  do.  I  felt  very  positive  that  the  boy 
had  had  enough  analysis  to  be  very  sane  and  mod- 

220 


MUSCLE  EROTISM 

erate.  He  had  talked  so  calmly  and  sensibly  as 
only  a  very  well-balanced  mind  could  do,  I  was 
sure  he  could  be  trusted  for  ten  days. 

He  returned  from  that  vacation  with  a  new 
look  on  his  face,  a  look  of  peace,  all  smiles.  The 
drawn  features,  drooping,  sensitive  mouth  had 
disappeared,  he  was  still  a  lively,  mischievous  boy, 
but  only  normally  so.  Track  work  used  his  mus- 
cles, but  his  energy  had  found  a  new  outlet.  He 
had  discovered  that  girls  are  very  pretty  and  re- 
markable creatures  and  that  dancing  is  a  delight- 
ful pastime.  The  life  he  was  running  to  find,  like 
the  bluebird,  was  right  beside  him. 

The  muscle  erotic  is  a  case  where  the  mating  or 
reproductive  function  has  not  developed  out  of  its 
presexual  stage,  and  where  it  is  still  contained 
in  the  infantile  form  of  motor  impulses.  It  is  not 
a  matter  of  wilful  repression  of  developed  sex- 
uality in  the  muscles,  but  a  stop  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  vital  energy  on  its  way  to  the  sexual 
function. 


221 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   TYKANT    CHILD 

If  a  wild,  untrained  animal  were  suddenly  en- 
dowed with  an  intellect,  he  would  possess  reason- 
ing power,  and,  as  he  is  governed  by  fear,  would 
think  something  like  this:  '*If  I  make  a  great 
noise,  howl  and  roar,  every  one  either  will  be 
afraid  of  me  and  run  away  and  I  will  get  what 
I  want,  or  they  will  stay  and  get  me  what  I  want." 
If  time  and  opportunity  have  afforded  this  animal 
an  education,  which,  as  the  etymology  of  the  word 
implies,  has  drawn  out  and  unfolded  the  powers 
of  the  mind  by  imparting  knowledge  and  by  or- 
derly arrangement  of  the  ideas  introduced,  he  will 
then  realize  that,  sometimes  at  least,  even  when 
he  howls  and  roars  he  does  not  get  what  he  wants. 
A  superior  force  can  frequently  make  it  very 
uncomfortable  for  him. 

A  child  follows  much  the  same  line  of  reason- 
ing, when  his  wants  are  not  supplied,  and  at  a 
very  early  age  his  instinct  untamed  by  an  un- 
folded intellect  sends  forth  the  cry  for  what  he 
wants.  As  he  grows  and  his  experience  accumu- 
lates, he  learns  that  certain  wants  are  forbidden 
and  mil  not  be  supplied.  If  he  has  an  over- 
indulgent  friend  or  relative  who  relaxes  disci- 

222 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

pline,  if  illness  forces  the  parents  to  become  in- 
dulgent, or  if  he  sees  another  child  having  the 
forbidden  want  supplied,  then  the  little  human 
animal  will  use  his  reasoning  power  to  create  the 
condition  which  will  necessitate  the  supplying  of 
the  forbidden  want.  He  may  either  feign  or  pro- 
long illness,  coax  the  indulgent  relative,  or  he 
may  learn  from  another  child  his  method  of  at- 
taining success. 

This  means  of  obtaining  satisfaction  of  the  de- 
sire for  power  is  not  entirely  confined  to  children. 
The  adult  invalid  is  too  often  a  child  of  larger 
growth,  the  convenient  headache,  fatigue  or  vari- 
ous aches  and  pains,  though  unconsciously  used, 
are  often  a  defence  against  unpleasant  demands. 
Both  tyrannical  child  and  invalid  adopt  a  certain 
line  of  action,  in  order  to  become  master  of  the  sit- 
uation. They  frequently  look  upon  themselves  as 
victims,  because  the  tyranny  which  uses  weak- 
ness as  a  means  never  can  find  it  satisfying  as  a 
condition.  Sometimes  the  child  is  fully  aware 
that  the  tyrannical  act  is  used  as  a  defence  or 
compensation.  ^^I  will  make  her  cry  for  it,"  I 
heard  a  fifteen-year-old  girl  say,  when  her  ap- 
parently very  firm  and  wise  mother  insisted  upon 
more  modest  dress  and  sensible  heels.  The  girl 
had  found  that,  by  showing  resentment,  by  living 
apart  from  the  family  circle  during  the  day  and 
not  speaking,  she  could  make  her  mother  suffer 
and  even  cause  her  to  shed  tears. 

223 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 


THE   HAND   OF   THE   TYEANT 

Another  case  of  tyranny  in  an  eleven-year-old 
girl  managing  her  mother  was  a  girl  with  an  ap- 
parently paralysed  left  hand,  which  she  refused  to 
use.  She  was  an  only  child,  fat,  over-grown  and 
indolent.  Her  father  was  a  working-man.  Her 
mother  had  indulged  the  girl  in  every  possible 
way,  until  she  was  very  weak  in  character.  She 
dressed  and  undressed  her  daughter,  arranged 
her  hair  and  cooked  all  meals  to  suit  her  special 
taste.  At  ten  years  of  age  the  doctors  had  treated 
her  for  a  cold  and  advised  the  removal  of  adenoids 
and  tonsils.  The  operation  was  performed  in  a 
hospital,  and  the  girl  spent  the  following  night 
there.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  suffered 
pain  or  met  a  situation  where  she  was  not 
** babied''  by  the  indulgent  mother.  After  the 
operation  the  doctors  and  nurses  did  not  notice 
anything  unusual  about  the  patient,  and  the  pa- 
tient declared  after  the  operation  the  nurse  had 
** walked''  her  to  the  bathroom.  But  when  the 
mother  came  in  the  afternoon  to  take  the  girl 
home,  it  was  found  she  did  not  move  her  left  side. 
Arm  and  leg  seemed  paralysed.  The  patient  was 
moved  home  after  a  few  days,  and  the  left  foot 
and  leg  soon  regained  normal  activity.  The  arm 
also  was  moved  freely  but  not  the  hand.  She 
doubled  up  her  left  elbow,  and  kept  the  folded 

224 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

hand  on  her  chest,  the  fingers  tightly  closed.  As 
she  talked  with  me,  she  laid  the  closed  left  hand 
in  her  lap,  pulled  open  the  fingers,  caressing  them, 
and  playing  with  them  as  if  with  a  doll.  I  took 
her  mind  off  her  hand  and  engaged  her  in  con- 
versation about  a  circus,  describing  the  trained 
animals.  As  she  became  interested,  she  opened 
and  moved  her  left  hand.  It  looked  relaxed  and 
natural.  At  other  times  it  looked  rigid  and 
strained. 

At  the  fourth  visit  I  gave  her  a  box  of  building 
blocks,  formed  so  as  to  be  dove-tailed  together 
and  requiring  two  strong  hands  to  unite  them.  I 
first  built  a  bridge  with  them.  Then  I  suddenly 
remembered  an  important  letter  I  had  to  write, 
and  left  her  seated  with  the  blocks  on  the  floor 
in  the  farther  comer  of  the  room.  She  worked 
with  one  hand  for  a  while,  but,  as  she  became 
more  interested,  the  left  hand  opened  and  worked 
with  the  right.  I  called  her  attention  to  this  fact 
and  spoke  in  flattering  terms.  **Yes,''  she  said, 
*^  sometimes  it  opens,  but  I  have  to  move  it  three 
times,  like  this.''  She  made  a  pawing  motion. 
I  took  the  left  hand  in  mine.  Instantly  it  closed, 
or  she  closed  it,  and  could  not  be  induced  to  open 
it  again.  I  could  not  possibly  pry  her  fingers 
open,  without  using  such  force  as  to  break  them. 
They  seemed  made  of  iron. 

.  Opposition  arouses  opposition  but  does  not  re- 
move its  cause,  so  we  must  work  to  arouse  the 

225 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

desire  in  the  patient.  This  girl  was  fond  of 
playing  cook.  She  was  told  how  to  cook  her 
father's  supper  consisting  of  fried  eggs  and 
mashed  potatoes.  She  was  very  fond  of  her 
father  and  very  anxious  to  prepare  his  supper, 
but  she  needed  two  hands  to  peel  and  mash  the 
potatoes  and  break  the  eggs  for  frying.  The 
mother  was  instructed  to  keep  out  of  the  kitchen, 
but  to  peep  in  occasionally  and  see  what  was  hap- 
pening. The  girl  was  using  both  hands  in  peeling 
and  mashing  the  potatoes  and  in  cooking  the  eggs, 
although  the  left  one,  from  not  being  used  as  much 
as  the  right  one,  was  working  awkwardly  and 
weakly.  She  became  quite  excited  at  this  first 
cooking  adventure,  and  ordered  her  mother  to  set 
the  table,  but  cut  the  bread  and  put  the  finishing 
touches  on  the  meal  herself.  When  she  cooked 
or  did  anything  else  for  her  father,  she  used  her 
two  hands,  but  would  never  do  so  for  her  mother, 
refusing  to  make  her  bed,  dust  the  furniture  or 
dress  herself.  She  thus  showed  a  strong  father 
complex,  a  topic  which  is  discussed  in  another 
chapter. 

Most  interesting  were  the  unconscious  thoughts 
brought  out  in  the  analysis.  In  her  dreams  she 
was  a  princess  and  in  her  left  hand  she  held  a 
beautiful  golden  sceptre  such  as  she  had  seen  in 
a  moving  picture ;  or  she  was  a  teacher  in  school, 
holding  a  pointer  in  her  left  hand  and  telling  the 
class  that  when  she  moved  the  pointer,  they  were 

226 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

to  change  from  one  side  of  the  room  to  the  other, 
all  excepting  the  history  class,  which  must  sit  still. 
This  was  interpreted  to  mean  that  she  did  not 
want  the  course  of  her  own  personal  history  to 
change.  Unconsciously  she  wanted  to  reserve  her 
left  hand  to  command  others  and  point  out  what 
they  were  to  do,  but  not  to  do  anything  with 
herself. 

After  a  few  months  of  analysis  a  new  environ- 
ment was  selected  with  a  cousin  living  in  the 
country  among  the  mountains,  where  there  was 
rough,  uneven  walking,  and  where  mountain 
climbing  sometimes  needed  the  use  of  two  hands. 
In  the  unconscious  thoughts  brought  out  in  the 
analysis,  the  girl  had  seen  that  she  must  conquer 
her  desire  to  be  wilful  and  babyish,  which  she 
evidently  was  in  using  her  left  hand  to  tyrannize 
over  her  mother,  and  then  her  left  hand  would 
want  to  work  with  her  right.  She  went  to  the 
mountains,  unaccompanied  on  the  train  and  full 
of  good  resolutions  to  try  her  best  to  grow  up  and 
be  a  fine  young  woman  of  whom  her  father  would 
be  proud.  She  remained  there  five  months,  using 
both  her  hands  all  the  time  (the  left  improving 
in  efficiency  even  to  the  extent  of  allowing  her  to 
row  a  boat),  but  when  she  returned  to  her  mother 
and  former  playmates,  the  old  temptations  re- 
appeared, partly,  in  her  mother's  treatment, 
partly  in  the  shut-in  conditions  surrounding  a 
child  in  her  own  home.    A  little  more  help  from 

227 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHn.D 

further  analysis  was  needed  to  start  this  girl 
again  in  different  habits  of  thought,  after  which 
she  finally  abandoned  her  wish  to  be  continually 
a  child. 


nXNESS  AS  TYEANNY 

The  wish  to  tyrannize  is  often  an  unconscious 
one.  Nervous  invalids  usually  think  they  would 
give  or  do  anything  to  be  well,  but  they  really 
want  health  to  come  from  the  outside  rather  than 
from  within  themselves.  Frequently  a  certain 
amount  of  self-sacrifice  is  needed  to  regain  health, 
as  indeed  health  and  happiness  come  through  the 
sacrifice  which  self-control  requires.  A  recent 
issue  of  a  medical  magazine  contains  an  article 
entitled  ^ '  Self -Denial  is  Rare!"  Who  has  not, 
after  an  illness,  felt  a  certain  disappointment  in 
leaving  the  sick  room,  where  one  has  received 
visitors  and  had  meals  on  a  dainty  tray,  and  in 
joining  the  family  group  where  one  does  not  re- 
ceive special  attention?  ^'The  average  human  be- 
ing does  not  want  to  live  hygienically !  ^ '  exclaims 
the  editor,  and  he  backs  up  his  assertion  with  the 
following  taken  from  a  physician 's  notes :  ^  *  Once 
we  published  an  account  of  a  case  of  diabetes  we 
had  treated  with  some  success.  A  distinguished 
army  officer  read  it  and  as  a  consequence  called 
upon  us.  We  began  to  explain  the  regimen  neces- 
sary, when  he  interrupted  to  say:  *I  don't  want 

228 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

any  diet.  I  want  you  to  give  me  a  treatment  that 
will  allow  me  to  eat  anything  I  want  in  any  quan- 
tity!'   We  resigned. 

**Mr.  Man  doesn't  want  to  stop  drinking  or 
smoking  or  working  or  playing  too  much.  What 
he  wants  of  us  is  the  means  to  keep  on  as  he  has 
been  living.  Madam  does  not  relish  our  advice 
to  cut  down  her  bridge,  loosen  her  corsets  and 
quit  gorging.  She  wants  medicine  to  restore  her 
youth,  take  off  her  fat,  and  enable  her  to  keep  it 
up  until  she  has  had  enough. 

**They  all  come  to  us,  not  for  reform,  but  to  be 
enabled  to  go  on  sinning." 

In  such  cases  it  is  putting  it  crudely  merely 
to  say  that  human  nature  is  selfish,  living  only 
for  its  own  gratifications.  That  way  of  saying 
it  does  not  bring  about  the  results  of  changing  the 
selfishness.  It  is  an  everyday  experience  that 
our  acts  are  not  on  a  level  with  our  reasoning. 
Hence  we  are  not  fully  adapted  to  the  conditions 
of  life.  We  do  not  suspect  that  we  have  not  re- 
linquished certain  childish  reactions  to  life,  that 
we  are  carrying  in  the  background  certain  in- 
fantile illusions,  of  which  we  are  conscious  only 
when  we  catch  fleeting  thoughts  of  unfulfilled 
wishes;  and  we  seek  relief  from  our  lack  of 
adaptation  to  our  surroundings,  by  games  and 
self-indulgence,  playing  the  tyrant  with  ourselves, 
by  living  as  far  as  possible  without  restrictions 
or  rules. 

229 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

REGRESSION 

In  psychoanalytic  treatment  a  patient  learns  to 
observe  the  fleeting  thoughts,  whether  in  phanta- 
sies of  the  day  or  in  those  of  the  night  which  we 
call  dreams.  In  these  thoughts  we  get  glimpses  of 
the  unconscious  which  contains  the  cause  of  the 
lack  of  adaptation.  With  the  libido  theory  we  can 
easily  explain  the  tyrannical  character  of  the  wish 
of  the  patient  with  the  paralysed  hand.  Just  at 
the  age  when  the  child  had  begun  definitely  to 
decide  on  certain  actions  upon  which  to  direct  her 
libido,  her  mother  interfered.  As  a  child  at  the 
seashore  in  attempting  to  fill  its  pail  with  sand  is 
sometimes  interfered  with  by  mother  or  nurse, 
who  hovers  over  the  child  and  cannot  let  it  act 
itself,  so  the  mother  of  this  patient  foresaw  each 
childish  purpose  and  in  more  senses  than  one, 
always  filled  her  sand  pail  for  her,  time  and 
again  driving  back  the  increasing  libido  until  it 
flowed  back  into  its  infantile  paths.  This  causes 
what  is  known  as  a  regression  of  the  libido. 

Of  course  the  mother  herself  was  still  partly  or 
wholly  living  in  her  own  childhood  in  making  a 
doll  out  of  her  child.  By  treating  the  girl  as  an 
infant  the  mother  prolonged  her  own  sense  of 
power  to  the  mental  injury  of  the  girl.  We  may 
say  that  the  wish  to  tyrannize  arises  from  the 
regression  of  the  libido  to  infantile  paths  and  that 
because  of  such  regression  the  mode  of  adapta- 

230 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

tion  to  life  will  be  infantile.  On  this  plan  the 
individual  expects  to  find  in  the  world  of  external 
reality  the  same  friendly  reception  from  every 
one  as  from  its  parents,  and  to  obtain  with  no 
trouble  an  easy  success.  When  an  obstacle  is  en- 
countered such  an  individual  shrinks  back  rather 
than  pushes  ahead  to  overcome,  and  this  attitude 
is  generally  caused  by  the  child  within  the  indi- 
^ddual  making  up  its  mind  to  let  the  parent  go  on 
and  fill  its  sand  pail.  In  this  simile  the  sand  pail 
is  the  world  work  demanded  of  the  child  and  now 
the  child  virtually  says  to  the  world  which  it  finds 
in  the  place  of  its  mother:  ^^All  right,  you  in- 
sisted on  filling  my  sand  pail  for  me  when  I 
wanted  to  do  it  myself.  Now  you  want  me  to  do 
it,  you  can  go  on  filling  it  yourself  and  you'll  get 
a  disappointment  equal  to  mine  when  you 
wouldn't  let  me."  It  makes  no  difference  with 
such  people  that  the  world  is  not  the  mother,  the 
child  behaves  to  both  the  same,  unconsciously,  be- 
cause its  disposition  toward  things  not  itself  was 
crystallized  in  early  life.  The  process  of  gradual 
spiritual  weaning  from  the  home,  represented  by 
the  mother,  should  be  begiin  even  before  the  first 
sand  pail  and  shovel,  or  the  mother-infant  atti- 
tude will  be  maintained  in  spite  of  any  conscious 
desire  that  may  later  come  to  terminate  it.  No 
matter  how  strong  the  conscious  wish,  the  uncon- 
scious is  stronger  simply  because  unknown. 
If  possible,  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  child 
231 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHKiD 

are  removed  by  him  with  childish  methods.  *^I 
will  kill  you, ' '  says  the  small  boy  when  you  inter- 
fere with  his  pleasure.  The  emperor  Nero  fur- 
nishes a  colossal  example  of  this  infantile  method 
of  control  of  surroundings.  His  libido  was 
blocked  and  regressed,  due  to  the  managing  and 
dictatorial  tendencies  of  his  mother,  until  it 
reached  the  primitive  condition  of  a  savage  with 
unlimited  cruelty,  in  which  he  murdered  his  own 
mother.  Nero  solved  his  problems  in  an  infantile 
manner.  Not  from  his  own  efforts  but  from  the 
efforts  of  his  ambitious  mother  came  his  wish  to 
be  an  emperor.  Completely  astray  as  to  his  moral 
qualities  he  never  realized  his  own  weakness. 
"When  he  wanted  to  enjoy  a  bonfire  he  burned  a 
city. 

INSUBOEDINATION 

Insubordination  of  children  becomes  permanent 
by  continuous  restriction  and  obstinacy  of  par- 
ents. The  insubordinate  child  is  inwardly  ask- 
ing for  training  and  guidance.  He  is  craving  to 
be  understood.  Punishments  and  corrections,  in- 
stead of  helping  him,  have  the  effect  of  hemming 
in  his  stream  of  life.  With  all  the  power  he  owns 
he  revolts  against  that  treatment  and,  in  effect,  he 
says,  **Show  me  the  way  by  encouragement,  by 
love  and  sympathy;  let  me  know  only  when  I  do 
right."  That  is  what  the  farmer  does  when  in 
cultivating  his  plants  he  loosens  the  soil  for  the 

232 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

life-giving  air  and  rain  to  reach  the  vital  parts  of 
their  being — their  roots.  Like  the  roots  of  the 
plants  which  grow  only  in  the  dark,  our  uncon- 
^  scions  needs  a  special  treatment  and  it  is  only 
jthrongh  analysis  that  the  roots  of  the  soul  can  be 
examined  and  their  special  needs  learned. 

The  incorrigible  child  is  never  understood,  and, 
as  this  lack  of  understanding  produces  a  very 
serious  lack  of  adjustment  between  himself  and 
his  surroundings,  he  gradually  loses  all  confidence 
in  them.  He  first  loses  confidence  in  his  father, 
and  thereafter  will  treat  all  men  as  if  they  merited 
no  more  confidence  than  his  father.  This  mal- 
adjustment of  the  child  to  his  surroundings  is 
actually  the  fault  of  the  parents  only,  and  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  rewarded  for  being  incor- 
rigible. For  this  he  is  given  the  only  reward  that 
a  child  desires,  which  is  the  personal  attention  of 
the  other  people.  Only  when  he  is  naughty  is  his 
personality  considered.  Only  if  he  is  sick  does  he 
get  attention.  This  is  specially  true  of  the  young- 
est child.  By  laziness  also,  and  by  opposition  to 
things  that  are  asked  of  him  he  can  obtain  power 
over  people  to  the  extent  of  forcing  them  to  con- 
sider and  take  an  interest  in  him. 

It  is  indispensable,  although  most  uncommon, 
for  parents  to  know  the  child  ^s  reactions  to  his 
surroundings,  particularly  to  authority.  In  the 
kind  of  investigations  pursued  in  psychoanalysis 
we  discover  more  and  more  every  day  the  danger 

233 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CBILD 

of  sending  home  a  child  we  may  have  taken  out  of 
his  home  and  cured.  We  have  succeeded  in  free- 
ing his  libido  so  that  health  returns  through  a 
change  of  attitude  toward  life  sufficiently  to  meet 
its  normal  demands.  If  we  send  such  a  child 
home,  we  send  him  into  the  same  conditions  which 
caused  his  illness,  conditions  due  only  to  the  ac- 
tions of  the  family.  Of  course  the  parents  do  not 
realize,  any  more  than  the  child,  the  necessity 
which  confronts  adults  of  a  complete  change  in 
attitude  toward  the  world,  from  the  infant  atti- 
tude, to  the  adult  attitude,  without  which  he  will 
through  physical  growth  cease  to  be  a  child  but 
through  lack  of  spiritual  growth  he  will  never 
completely  become  an  adult. 

The  young  child  does  not  yet  suffer  from  his 
inability  to  cross  the  bridge  into  manhood  in  the 
same  way  and  to  the  same  degree  that  adults 
suffer  from  their  infantile  reactions  to  life,  when 
they  expect  the  same  sympathetic  understanding 
from  the  world  that  they  received  from  their 
parents.  On  the  contrary,  the  child  is  still  in  the 
happy  state  where  he  can  put  all  the  blame  on 
adults  and  what  seems  to  him  their  foolish  ideas. 
The  incorrigible  child  plays  a  certain  proud  part 
among  his  comrades  and  feels  himself  a  hero,  just 
because  of  his  improper  attitude  of  laziness  and 
impudence  in  his  own  little  world.  Lazy  children 
want  to  be  at  the  top  without  any  effort  of  climb- 
ing, and  feel  no  need  to  abandon  their  own  ways. 

234 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

The  neurotic  adult,  however,  does  see  the  neces- 
sity of  abandoning  or  relinquishing  his  old  pleas- 
ures, but  he  is  usually  unable  to  do  so  without  aid. 
Rather  than  work,  the  young  patient  would  keep 
his  habits  and  his  dreams  of  being  a  hero,  and  he 
feels  that  advice  and  correction  are  the  hardships 
of  fate. 

PAEENTS  AS   SIGNBOAEDS 

After  the  analysis  the  adolescent's  unconscious 
is  laid  bare  before  him.  He  sees  what  an  unlovely 
personality  his  is,  what  truly  disgusting  ideals  are 
making  him  feel  like  a  hero.  In  the  past  the  boy 
has  admired  his  father  and  wished  to  imitate  him. 
Outwardly  he  has  tried  to  imitate  him  in  detail, 
or  has  envied  him,  when  seeing  what  appears  to 
the  child  to  be  the  freedom  of  action  and  abso- 
lute right  to  the  mother.  The  father  takes  her 
away  for  trips  and  leaves  the  child  at  home.  He 
exacts  proper  conduct  of  the  child  which  he  does 
not  maintain  himself,  just  as  the  signboard  on  the 
road  points  the  way  for  other  people  but  does  not 
have  to  go  itself.  The  realization  of  the  great  dif- 
ference between  himself  and  his  father,  not  merely 
in  physical  strength  but  in  power  of  every  kind 
weighs  heavily  upon  him.  *^I  am  immersed  in 
deep  darkness,"  says  the  child,  **my  father  is 
standing  way  up  like  a  bright  light,  so  far  above 
me  I  see  no  way  to  reach  him  except  through 
mother."    It  frequently  happens  that  the  boy's 

235 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

longing  to  appropriate  his  mother  fills  him  with 
jealousy  of  his  father,  or  he  condemns  her  for 
coldness  when  she  does  not  devote  herself  exclu- 
sively to  him.  He  longs  for  a  mother  who  will 
lift  him  up  and  push  him  on  to  overcome  the 
obstacles.  When  the  boy  finds  that  his  fight  for 
the  possession  of  the  mother  and  his  imitation  of 
the  brilliant  qualities  of  his  father  remain  with- 
out results,  he  seeks  in  his  own  phantasies  the 
feeling  of  power  and  a  sense  of  his  value.  If  he  is 
a  lazy  boy  he  can  become  a  clown  of  the 
school  and  thus  can  transform  his  weakness  into 
power. 


STRENGTH  OF  WEAKNESS 

Through  analysis  the  boy  recognizes  the 
reasons  for  wishing  to  transform  his  weakness 
into  power.  He  also  recognizes  that  in  work  he 
has  a  new  source  from  which  to  derive  satisfac- 
tion. The  analyst  must  temper  the  wind  to  the 
shorn  lamb,  and  learn  how  strong  a  pressure  is 
necessary  to  free  the  blocked  libido  and  how  much 
of  it  the  child  can  stand  at  once.  The  child  who 
uses  his  weakness  as  a  source  of  power  does  so 
by  coaxing  his  parents.  This  indirect  means  of 
overcoming  parental  opposition  must  be  con- 
quered by  the  analyst  in  arousing  new  motives,  as 
the  parents  who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be 
coaxed  have  shown  that  they  are  themselves  un- 

236 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

able  to  create  the  proper  incentive  in  their  chil- 
dren. A  child  must  not  be  allowed  to  conquer  by 
his  methods  of  weakness,  a  victory  which  all 
parents  know  is  unfortunate  for  both  conqueror 
and  conquered.  The  victory  of  weakness  in- 
creases, paradoxically  enough,  the  strength  of  the 
weakness.  It  puts  a  premium  on  weakness  itself, 
for  through  weakness  the  individual  exerts  a 
strong  power  over  the  persons  of  his  environ- 
ment. But  we  have  not  realized  until  today  that 
the  child  adopts  that  method  only  because  the 
natural  way  has  been  obstructed  at  some  time  dur- 
ing its  growth.  Therefore,  a  new  education  must 
take  place  so  that  the  neurotic  child  can  resume 
the  original  line  of  development  at  the  point 
where  it  was  arrested.  Without  this  new  style  of 
education  he  can  never  break  his  old  habits.  It  is 
exceedingly  difficult  for  the  child  to  begin  this 
reconstruction  and  for  parents  not  to  spoil  the 
whole  fabric  of  the  past. 

Frequently  a  child  is  called  incorrigible  because 
he  refuses  to  meet  demands  which  are  really  not 
necessary,  and  refuses  to  avoid  doing  that  which  is 
useless  for  parents  to  forbid  merely  to  gratify 
their  sense  of  power.  Frequently  parents  forbid 
when  there  is  no  sense  in  forbidding.  Natural 
freedom  of  movement  is  inhibited  by  such  a  pro- 
cedure, and  rational  action  is  obstructed  by  the 
parents '  fanciful  will.  By  such  means  dangerous, 
destructive    elements    are    introduced    into    the 

237 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOCS  CHILD 

child's  psyche,  against  which  the  instinct  for  self- 
defence  has  to  revolt.  We  may  call  such  a  child 
tyrannical,  but  who  are  the  real  tyrants?  Chil- 
dren often  know  better  than  adults  what  they 
need,  while  by  an  abrupt  and  injudicious  inter- 
ference, their  course  of  education  and  develop- 
ment, prescribed  by  their  own  nature,  is  dis- 
turbed. That  does  not  mean  to  say  that  one 
should  yield  to  them  in  every  way ;  it  only  means 
that  we  should  be  cautious  and  parsimonious  in 
correcting  them.  There  are  times  when  we  must 
be  unyielding.  The  child  recognizes  the  undisci- 
plined will  of  adults,  not  only  in  the  unnecessary 
prohibitions  but  also  in  the  unjustified  permis- 
sions. As  a  matter  of  fact,  adults,  through  ca- 
priciousness  and  laziness,  yield  to  their  own  un- 
justified inclinations  in  that  they  prefer  what  is 
pleasant,  but  sternly  reprove  their  children  for 
doing  the  same  thing.  Human  beings  in  their  in- 
tellectual development  have,  on  the  one  hand,  a 
fear  for  the  requirements  of  life;  on  the  other, 
they  are  forced  to  fight  for  their  own  preserva- 
tion and  that  of  the  race.  The  child  tries  to  main- 
tain itself  by  its  own  methods  which  are  very  in- 
appropriate, being  a  mixture  of  childish  inexperi- 
ence and  of  good  and  bad  manners,  copied  from 
adults.  So  in  his  neurotic  formula  of  reaction  the 
child  adopts  a  modus  vivendi  which  is  more  or  less 
of  a  compromise  between  his  love  for  parents, 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  the  aggressive  and  de- 

238 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

fensive  fight  carried  through  for  his  own  exist- 
ence. 

FATHER  AS   MODEL. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  difficulties  a  child  meets 
with  in  the  home  surroundings,  I  will  describe  the 
case  of  a  fourteen-year-old  boy  having  an  attrac- 
tive personality  and  the  usual  intellectual  endow- 
ment. He  had  grown  up  under  circumstances 
judged  favourable  by  the  world  of  current  opin- 
ion. His  father  was  an  energetic  and  intelligent 
man  with  a  successful  business  career,  the  mother 
soft  and  amiable.  Both  have  manifold  interests 
and  are  highly  gifted.  The  great  proficiency  of 
the  father,  as  very  frequently  happens,  was  united 
with  a  very  high  opinion  of  himself,  occasionally 
with  a  want  of  consideration,  and  at  such  times 
he  felt  himself  very  superior,  but  the  self-confi- 
dence had  not  such  a  sound  foundation  as  ap- 
peared on  the  surface  and  covered  a  clever  uncer- 
tainty. The  mother  was  absolutely  submissive  to 
his  intelligence  and  decision,  but  a  certain  sadness 
in  her  eyes  betrayed  a  wish  to  rebel  if  she  only 
dared  to  do  so. 

The  son  born  of  these  parents  grew  up  among 
the  older  brothers  and  sisters,  sometimes  with 
much  petting.  This  the  father  saw,  but  consid- 
ered it  a  weakening  influence  and  used  too  strict 
and  harsh  measures  as  an  antidote.  Very  early 
demands  were  made  upon  the  child  which  could 

239 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

hardly  be  answered  by  any  child  of  his  age.  Since 
the  boy,  as  every  boy  does,  wanted  to  be  similar 
to  the  father,  he  tried  as  far  as  possible  to  meet 
his  expectations,  but  they  were  above  the  boy's 
power.  He  tried  to  show  ability  by  using  the 
same  means  he  saw  his  father  use,  being  exceed- 
ingly neat  and  well-groomed,  wearing  well-made 
clothes  and  imitating  his  father's  manners.  The 
attempts  were  naturally  very  poor,  as  he  could  not 
yet  do  the  things  which  were  possible  for  his 
father.  Continual  failures  discouraged  the  boy. 
He  worried  about  them.  Instead  of  quietly  di- 
recting the  boy's  attention  to  his  errors  and  edu- 
cating him  gradually  to  his  own  individuality,  the 
father,  owing  to  his  own  despotic  tendencies 
caused  by  his  superficial  thinking,  recognized  the 
boy's  efforts  as  mere  silliness  and  became  angry, 
blaming  the  son,  but  puffed  himself  up  as  being  a 
model  and  very  superior, — ^whereupon  the  boy  re- 
doubled his  efforts  to  be  the  same  as  the  father. 
He  was  told  it  was  up  to  him  to  become  this  very 
perfect  boy  his  father  wished.  His  mother  ap- 
parently agreed  with  his  father  so  even  with  her 
the  boy  had  had  no  opportunity  quietly  to  develop 
his  own  personality  and  natural  tendencies. 

We  are  not  surprised  to  see  this  boy  failing 
more  and  more  in  school,  although  he  is  diligent 
and  not  without  mental  endowment.  In  the  school 
he  reacts  in  the  same  way  as  at  home.  He  works 
not  because  it  is  his  duty,  because  he  wants  to  be 

240 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

instructed  and  because  he  is  anxious  to  increase 
his  knowledge  and  thereby  gain  greater  power 
and  more  pleasure  in  life,  but  his  entire  aim  is 
to  acquire  qualities  like  his  father's  and  to  create 
the  impression  that  he  is  shrewd,  energetic,  intelli- 
gent and  efficient.  He  constantly  feels  that  he  will 
not  be  able  to  succeed.  Naturally,  he  uses  his 
powers  at  school  as  he  does  at  home,  and  with  the 
same  unsatisfactory  results.  The  more  he  follows 
this  inefficient  method  the  more  he  arouses  dis- 
satisfaction in  others.  Gradually  he  loses  all 
courage.  Complaint  after  complaint  comes  from 
school;  he  fails  in  his  examinations,  is  not  pro- 
moted, and  the  familiar  ^^ school  misery''  is  the 
final  result. 

In  cases  such  as  this  both  teachers  and  parents 
are  confronted  with  a  serious  problem,  which 
would  be  solved  if  the  parents  and  teachers  were 
interested  enough  to  learn  the  child's  formula  of 
reaction.  In  this  case  the  reaction  formula  is 
that  he  is  using  his  abilities  only  for  a  game  of 
imitation.  His  natural  gifts  do  not  become  ap- 
parent, and  so  subject  to  intelligent  cultivation, 
because  he  has  been  scolded  and  punished.  He 
has  never  been  educated  in  such  a  way  as  to  *4ead 
forth"  the  appropriate  use  of  his  own  particular 
qualities.  For  the  requirements  imposed  upon 
him  individually  he  feels  only  fear,  being  in- 
wardly convinced  that  he  cannot  meet  them,  which 
indeed  he  really  cannot,  because  they  are  misfit 

241 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

requirements.  They  are  as  unreasonable  as 
would  be  the  use  of  a  race  horse  to  pull  a  truck, 
or  a  dray  horse  to  run  in  a  race. 

As  a  concrete  example  of  the  impossible  de- 
mands made  uj)on  children  we  might  take  the  pro- 
pounding, quite  common  among  parents,  of  ques- 
tions or  mathematical  problems  with  a  view  to 
''testing"  the  child.  These  questions  and  prob- 
lems are  deterrent  not  alone  because  of  their  in- 
herent difficulty.  Sometimes  they  are  essentially 
quite  simple  but  contain  a  verbal  catch,  designed 
to  trip  up  the  child  and  lead  him  to  make  a  mis- 
take which  it  is  quite  likely  his  inexperience  of 
the  world  will  prevent  him  from  seeing.  Some- 
times they  are  asked  with  the  conscious  purpose 
of  making  the  child  uncomfortable  but  in  all  these 
instances  these  questions  are  impossible  because 
they  are  not  real  questions  implying  an  ability  on 
the  part  of  the  child  to  answer  them.  Indeed  the 
child  at  once  sees  in  most  instances  that  they 
imply  an  inability  on  his  part  to  answer  them,  and 
he  instinctively  feels  that  the  adult  asking  them  is 
gaining  some  sort  of  satisfaction  from  his  dis- 
comfiture. If  parents  or  teachers  would  but  con- 
sider how  extraordinary,  not  to  say  uncanny,  a 
full  adult  response  to  some  of  these  questions 
would  appear  to  them,  they  would  at  once  see  the 
unreasonableness  of  such  questions,  and  would 
realize  that  the  asking  of  them  is  a  thoughtless 
act  on  their  part,  for  it  is  frequently  a  situation 

242 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

unnecessarily  created  by  the  adult  to  show  his 
superiority  to  the  child. 


PEELING  OP  INPERIOBITY 

A  psychoanalysis  shows  the  cause  of  the  boy's 
reaction  to  this  kind  of  demand,  but  it  expects  the 
parents'  co-operation  in  overcoming  anxiety  on 
the  part  of  the  child.  This  is  accomplished 
largely  by  removing  the  obstructions  which  block 
the  life  stream  so  that  the  feeling  of  inferiority 
disappears,  to  be  replaced  by  confidence.  Then 
only  will  the  child's  energy  be  utilized  in  his  work, 
in  fulfilling  his  duty  and  in  complying  with  life's 
demands.  Adults  seek  many  ways  of  compensat- 
ing for,  or  setting  up  a  defence  against,  this  feel- 
ing of  inferiority.  They  magnify  whatever  suc- 
cess they  may  have  had  and  refuse  to  accept  criti- 
cism for  their  deficiencies;  they  become  sensitive 
and  touchy. 

Here  lies  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties  of  edu- 
cation, whether  domestic  or  academic.  The  nerv- 
ous child  is  by  disposition  sensitive  and  touchy. 
He  has  an  especially  keen  discernment  for  all 
sorts  of  things,  a  very  fine  discriminative  sense. 
Things  seem  different  to  him  when  they  seem 
the  same  to  others  not  so  sensitive.  And  he  has 
a  very  keen  eye  for  the  weak  spots  of  his  teachers 
and  parents.  Such  a  child  with  so  sensitive  a 
nature  is  like  a  very  delicate  scientific  instrument 

243 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

of  precision,  and  is  really  designed  for  very  high 
uses.  In  every  nervous  child  lies  the  germ  of  a 
nature  finer  than  that  of  the  ordinary  healthy 
individual.  He  is  looking  always  for  other 
humans  finely  enough  constituted  to  give  him  di- 
rections or  example  to  follow,  for  men  and  women 
to  whom  he  may  transfer  entirely  his  ideal, 
his  unconscious  aim.  Children  are  very  quick  to 
perceive  whether  the  teachers  and  parents  are 
serving  their  own  interests  or  the  children's. 
Since  parents  are  not  more  perfect  than  other 
human  beings,  they  may,  with  the  very  best  in- 
tentions, be  deceived  about  their  innermost  mo- 
tives and  not  realize  how  much  of  their  own 
egotism  is  finding  satisfaction  in  their  relations 
with  their  children. 

It  is  very  important  for  those  who  have  the  care 
and  training  of  nervous  children  or  of  adults  to 
have  a  thorough,  analytic  self-knowledge,  because 
"without  it,  the  children's  complexes  are  brought 
to  life  by  the  complexes  of  the  adults  having 
charge  of  them.  This  constant  resuscitation  of 
unhappy  feelings  renders  almost  impossible  a 
completely  satisfactory  work  on  the  part  of  the 
analyst.  Therefore,  any  special  training  directed 
by  analysis  must  aim  with  the  greatest  patience  to 
represent  the  demands  of  life  in  a  most  attractive 
form  without  annoyance  or  hatred.  From  the 
psychoanalytic  point  of  view,  laziness,  disobedi- 
ence, silliness  and  other  childish  traits  are  not 

244 


THE  TYRANT  CHILD 

considered  punishable  faults.  They  are  not  the 
actions  of  personal  offence  or  revenge  on  the  part 
of  a  vulgar  soul.  The  analyst  asks  why  a  human 
being  behaves  in  this  or  that  unsuitable  way,  what 
he  expects  to  gain  by  it,  what  are  the  unconscious 
wishes  at  the  basis  of  the  distorted  form  in  which 
conscious  wishes  are  expressed,  in  other  words, 
what  is  the  reaction  formula  which  is  hiding  be- 
hind the  overt  actions.  The  wild  and  erroneous 
statements  of  children  are  to  be  understood  then 
as  symptoms.  The  trials  of  many  parents  would 
be  greatly  lessened  if  they  could  be  made  to  un- 
derstand this  very  important  fact,  and  that  every 
capricious  and  silly  act  of  a  child  may  have  as  an 
underlying  cause  a  complex  which  psychoanalytic 
investigation  can  remove.  Every  child  has  in  him 
a  something  which  wants  to  grow.  If  it  is  not 
allowed  to  grow  at  all,  or  if  it  is  not  developed  in 
a  balanced  way,  it  will  break  out  in  innumerable 
other  ways,  the  child  ^s  character  will  be  de- 
formed, and  will  be  dwarfed  in  the  very  char- 
acteristics where  it  ought  to  have  its  fullest 
growth. 


245 


CHAPTER  XII 

TEACHING   OF   EIGHT  AND   WEONG 

"  Understanding  is  a  wellspring  of  life  to  him  who  hath  it." 
— Proverbs. 

This  difficult  question  of  guiding  the  childish  mind 
through  the  mazes  of  temptation  will  be  less  prob- 
lematical if  in  teaching  our  children  we  are  not  too 
much  led  by  our  own  whims,  prejudices  or  nerves, 
if  we  do  not  think  superficially  only  and  so  accept 
the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  as  taught  us  by  our 
parents.  We  should,  on  the  contrary,  understand 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  as  revealed  by  the  con- 
stant urge  from  the  conflict  of  the  conscious  and 
unconscious.  To  the  undeveloped  mind  *^I  want 
it'*  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  getting  it,  without 
any  sense  of  justice  or  of  law  and  order. 

This  difference  between  the  child  and  the  adult 
mind  is  quite  clear  to  the  adult,  but  to  children 
whose  universal  infantile  experience  has  been  to 
cry  for  a  thing  until  they  get  it,  or  exhaust  them- 
selves with  crying,  the  discrepancy  between  *^I 
want  if  and  **I  have  if  is  so  great  that  it  is 
unendurable,  and  all  children  who  have  a  desire 
for  anything,  are  abnormal  if  they  do  not  cry  or 
fight  till  they  either  do  not  want  it  or  get  it. 
This  fact  enables  us  to  divide  children  into  two 

246 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

classes:  (1)  those  who  struggle,  with  or  without 
crying,  and,  (2)  those  who  do  not  struggle  or  cry. 
Parents  think  the  second  class  is  the  better  and 
indeed  it  is  the  easier  to  live  with.  But  we  find 
that  really  it  is  the  worse,  because  we  have  learned 
that  while  the  children  of  the  first  type  are  con- 
cerned with  their  relations  with  the  external 
world,  those  of  the  second  withdraw  from  the 
world  into  themselves,  and  at  a  very  early  age, 
a  process  which,  if  continued,  is  most  detrimental. 

So  that  when  the  practical  question  comes  up 
in  a  direct  conflict  between  the  will  of  the  parent 
and  that  of  either  the  child  or  any  other  de- 
pendent, there  is  great  need  for  care  in  the  adjust- 
ment, or  the  child  and  parent  will  tend  to  become 
separated,  not  as  they  should  be,  in  good  feeling, 
but  with  bad  feeling  in  their  hearts. 

Shall  the  man  who  has  worked  all  day  and 
earned  his  wages  give  to  the  one  who,  although 
endowed  by  nature  with  equal  power,  has  spent 
the  day  in  idle  phantasies?  Or  shall  the  ^^I  want 
it"  of  the  mind  that  is  not  built  out,  not  broad- 
ened and  not  strengthened  by  education  both  from 
books  and  experience,  demand  the  same  as  he  who 
has  put  forth  all  his  efforts  in  the  struggle  to 
acquire  an  education  for  more  power  to  express 
his  energy!  Would  that  be  just?  **I  want  it  be- 
cause I  want  it"  is  the  child's  unreasoning  de- 
mand which  must  be  met  in  early  life  with  a  sense 
of  justice  on  the  part  of  both  parent  and  child. 

247 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

When  a  host  of  admirers  stand  ready  to  supply 
the  slightest  want  until  the  child  is  overwhelmed, 
what  wonder  that  he  throws  everything  aside  in  a 
burst  of  impatience  and  finds  interest  in  some 
simple  thing.  I  watched  a  nine  months '  baby  neg- 
lect entirely  the  store  toys  and  play  a  long  time 
with  a  china  egg  which  he  had  found. 

A  young  child  has  a  keen  sense  of  justice  and 
lively  responsiveness.  A  smile  on  your  face 
brings  a  smile  on  his ;  and  calling  forth  a  smile  on 
his  face  before  giving  toys  is  a  wise  precaution 
against  his  crying  for  what  he  wants.  He  will 
soon  learn  to  make  sounds  to  attract  your  atten- 
tion and  smile  in  expectation.  ^ '  You  will  give  that 
child  everything  she  wants,  she  will  be  spoiled," 
said  a  dyspeptic  relative.  *^If  I  were  so  stupid  as 
to  wait  until  my  baby  cried  for  what  she  wants 
before  giving  it  to  her,  or  to  give  her  something 
to  silence  her  because  she  was  crying  she  would 
^indeed  be  spoiled,"  answered  the  calm  young 
mother.  It  is  only  just  to  the  child  to  ask  for  his 
smile ;  it  is  all  he  has  to  give  for  the  pleasure  and 
care  from  you,  but  it  means  so  much  in  later  years, 
for  the  happy  smile  is  the  first  freeing  of  the  crea- 
tive emotions  from  the  child-soul  and  should  be 
followed  by  an  impulse  of  energy.  Careful  ob- 
servation of  the  child  shows  that  a  sudden  move- 
ment or  spring  usually  follows  a  baby's  smile, 
demonstrating  the  release  of  energy  that  follows 
the  happy  emotion  (which  is  literally  the  moving 

248 


TEACHING  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

out  of  life).  Try  the  experiment  of  attracting  the 
child  to  smiles  and  watch  the  sudden  movement 
following  the  smile.  If  the  ''I  want  if  of  the 
child  must  be  denied,  do  not  leave  a  vacuum  where 
the  wish  was,  but  give  your  sympathy  or  some 
other  substitute  so  that  by  distraction  the  child's 
mind  may  be  led  away  from  the  wish.  It  should 
not  be  repressed  (wanted  just  the  same  but  denied 
by  force  or  superior  power  of  authority)  but 
should  be  replaced  by  other  interests.  Above  all 
things,  do  not  be  too  lazy  to  think  whether  or  not 
the  reason  for  denial  is  necessary,  for  then  the 
child  is  very  quick  to  see  through  your  mistake 
and  a  seed  is  sown  for  future  trouble  in  the  form 
of  nervous  disorders,  negative  opinions  and  ac- 
tions, and  dyspeptic  relatives  for  the  next  genera- 
tion.    And  do   not   say  *'no,"   and   afterwards 

With  what  stolid  indifference  we  pass  by  the 
teaching  of  the  Christian  dogma  in  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments.  For  countless  generations  the 
lawmakers  and  teachers  gave  most  earnest 
thought,  prayed  and  yearned,  over  the  right  guid- 
ing of  the  human  race.  Laws  were  fashioned 
which  they  believed  would  light  the  steps  of  their 
children  and  children's  children  to  endless  gener- 
ations, yet  we  scarcely  read  them  over.  Creeds 
of  the  past  thousands  of  years  have  been  care- 
fully preserved,  for  to  some  men  they  brought 
peace,  self-mastery  and  power,  which  promoted 

249 


THE  PROBLEM  OP  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

life.  Should  we  not  go  a  little  more  slowly  and 
examine  them  before  we  so  freely  express  our 
notions  of  right  and  wrong?  This  is  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom  for  the  child,  with  respect  for 
authority  and  obedience  to  law.  Respect  for  law 
and  obedience  to  authority  show  a  mind  strength- 
ened and  well-balanced  by  a  favourable  environ- 
ment (not  weakened  and  suffering  from  oppres- 
sion and  fear  of  might)  and  are  the  foundation 
stones  of  our  homes,  of  society,  of  our  country  and 
of  peace.  It  is  only  through  law  and  order  that 
we  can  enjoy  peace.  Resistance  to  authority 
shows  a  mind  weakened  by  the  crushing  weight 
of  unwise  authority  and  leads  to  lawlessness  and 
a  lawless  life.    A  lawless  country  is  doomed. 

Like  his  body,  a  child's  life  is  at  first  very  weak 
and  can  express  only  a  few  movements  either  of 
muscles  or  of  emotional  feeling;  but  as  the  mind 
grows  the  body  grows.  Intelligence  is  followed 
by  the  independent  action  of  the  body.  The  his- 
tory of  the  child  and  human  life  is  the  history  of 
the  race.  As  the  race  learned  that  what  was 
wrong  was  any  form  of  destruction  which  would 
ultimately  destroy  life,  so  the  child  must  be 
taught  to  respect  life.  In  ancient  times  it  was  be- 
lieved that  in  order  to  preserve  life,  life  must  be 
given,  that  the  old  life  must  die  for  the  new  one 
to  live,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Bible  *^he  that  loseth 
his  life  shall  find  it,"  and  we  have  accepted  that 
meaning  to  be  a  death  unto  sin  and  birth  into 

250 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

righteousness,  as  a  symbolic  act  in  the  rite  of 
baptism.  *' Except  ye  be  born  again  ye  cannot 
enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  In  this  sense  the 
former  self  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  new.  In  the 
teaching  of  the  Ten  Commandments  on  two  tables 
of  stone  the  race  was  clearly  told  the  rules  for 
right  and  wrong  doing.  The  first  ^ve  command- 
ments on  the  table  of  stone  tell  us  what  we  must 
do,  they  are  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  creative 
spirit  of  life,  which  we  call  God,  to  respect  and 
reverence  for  laws  preserving  life.  In  the  last 
five  any  kind  of  destruction  is  forbidden. 

VI.  ^^Thou  Shalt  not  kilP'  forbids  direct  de- 
struction of  life  and  human  life  is  not  specified. 

VII.  ^^Thou  shalt  not  steal"  forbids  destruc- 
tion in  the  command  for  protection  of  property. 

VIII.  ^^Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery"  for- 
bids destruction  of  love  without  which  there  can- 
not be  life. 

IX.  Forbids  destruction  of  honour,  and 

X.  Forbids  covetousness  which  brings  greed, 
envy  and  the  group  of  destructive  emotions. 

The  subsequent  chapters  in  Exodus  tell  of  the 
stern  necessity  of  justice,  **an  eye  for  an  eye," 
and  the  absolute  demand  for  reparation.  *^If  a 
man  steals  an  ox  and  kills  or  sells  it  he  shall 
restore  five  oxen." 

After  the  race  had  developed  from  the  Mosaic 
law  through  many  hundred  years,  further  in- 
struction was  given  in  the  wisdom  of  King  Solo- 

251 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

mon.  He  gave  the  same  admonitions  to  respect 
authority,  warning  against  temptations,  telling 
always  of  the  great  need  of  wisdom,  teaching  the 
moral  virtues  and  their  contrary  vices,  and  the 
value  of  self-control.  *  ^  He  that  is  slow  to  anger  is 
better  than  the  mighty,  and  he  that  rnleth  his 
spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city/'  These  laws 
expressed  in  the  Old  Testament  are  the  founda- 
tions of  civilization.  How  wonderful  that  in  the 
few  lines  of  the  last  ^ve  commandments  is  con- 
densed the  entire  question  of  sin,  which  is  de- 
struction in  any  form. 

It  has  been  argued  that  in  spite  of  the  original 
strong  commands  not  to  kill  nor  to  destroy,  since 
Biblical  times  there  has  always  been  war  with  its 
enormous  destruction.  If  we  look  a  little  further, 
we  see  that  war  has  never  undermined  the  founda- 
tions of  civilization,  for  peace  and  improvement 
of  the  race  have  always  followed.  War  is  com- 
parable to  a  faulty  superstructure  on  a  firm  and 
solid  foundation,  upon  which  the  race,  as  soon  as 
the  lust  and  excitement  have  calmed  down,  again 
starts  to  rebuild.  Then,  further,  should  we  not 
examine  findings  which  in  the  medical  world  are 
also  teaching  and  proving  the  necessity  for  truth? 
Science  and  religion  have  been  thought  to  dis- 
, agree  and  to  have  a  different  work  to  perform. 
But  when  we  search  for  the  etymology  and  origi- 
nal significance  they  seem  to  have  a  similar  mean- 
ing.   The  teachings  of  laws  to  promote  a  just  and 

252 


TEACHING  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

peaceful  life  are  found  in  other  religions  than  the 
Christian. 

A  child  absorbs  much  of  his  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong  from  his  daily  surroundings  by  copy- 
ing the  sayings  and  conduct  of  his  elders.  For 
instance,  at  a  Sunday  table  several  children  were 
lunching  together.  They  began  an  argument 
about  some  conduct  in  their  school,  blaming  one  of 
the  absent  schoolmates  for  starting  some  mischief. 
The  argument  became  heated,  when  a  little  five- 
year-old  girl  who  had  been  listening  very  quietly, 
said  **Sh!  sh!  sh!  my  mother  says  you  must  al- 
ways talk  about  nice  things  at  the  table.''  The 
mother  did  not  remember  giving  such  instruction 
in  the  little  girl's  presence,  but  the  *^ little 
pitcher"  was  always  filling  up  with  her  mother's 
wisdom  and  found  this  an  appropriate  occasion 
to  pour  out  some  of  mother 's  teachings. 

When  investigating  an  untruthful  child  in  an 
analysis,  I  found  the  mother,  a  woman  of  fine 
social  standing,  to  be  in  her  social  life  an  invet- 
erate teller  of  white  lies.  Not  for  the  world  would 
she  have  hurt  any  one's  feelings,  so  she  smiled  at 
her  hostesses  or  guests  with  sweet  sayings,  but 
in  the  family  circle  spoke  of  her  annoyance.  She 
had  gushingly  invited  her  niece  and  little  grand- 
niece  to  come  and  stay  through  the  period  of  in- 
fantile paralysis,  told  her  niece  how  delighted  she 
would  be  to  have  her  and  little  grandniece,  how 
she  loved  babies,  and  how  dear  baby  Susan  was. 

253 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

But  after  the  arrival  of  niece  and  grandniece,  the 
hostess  began  confidentially  to  remark  to  her 
sister  bridge  players  that  baby  Susan's  toys  were 
so  disturbing,  and  baby  Susan  was  never  still, 
she  was  such  a  chatterbox.  Madame 's  morning 
nap  was  always  broken  by  the  early  rising  of  baby 
Susan.  And,  strange  to  say,  this  silly,  selfish 
woman  was  sympathized  with,  and  the  niece  and 
little  grandniece  were  considered  as  very  thought- 
less and  inconsiderate.  The  untruthful  child  has 
to  learn  of  her  mother's  untruthfulness,  but  this 
knowledge  can  be  adjusted  by  explanation  of 
mamma's  being  too  impulsive  for  her  own  good, 
and  undertaking  more  than  she  can  accomplish. 

Untruthfulness  is  most  frequently  caused  by 
fear  and  timidity,  and  by  repression.  If  the  child 
told  the  truth,  he  would  be  punished  and  threat- 
ened by  the  parent.  This  would  inhibit  and  block 
the  outflow  of  life  in  the  child,  a  most  dangerous 
thing  because  it  frequently  causes  serious  forms 
of  nervous  troubles,  epilepsy,  tics  and  functional 
disturbances.  People  who  demand  the  truth  from 
a  child  or  inferior  in  a  threatening  voice  deserve 
more  contempt  and  punishment  than  the  untruth- 
ful one.  Truth  can  be  elicited  from  a  guilty  child 
by  sympathy  more  easily  and  exactly  than  it  can 
be  extracted  by  fear.  No  one  is  born  truthful 
or  honest.  Parents  and  teachers  often  make  it 
extremely  difficult  for  a  child  to  tell  the  truth,  and 
when    we    have    departed    from    our    ignorant 

254 


TEACHING  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

methods  of  punisliment  (with  their  cruel  and  bar- 
barous ways  of  demanding  the  truth)  there  will  be 
more  truth  and  virtue  in  mankind. 

A  child's  quick  ear  heard  her  mother  tell  her 
father  a  new  hat  had  cost  ten  dollars  and  then  tell 
a  visitor  that  it  had  cost  twenty  dollars.  The  child 
said  nothing,  but  the  knowledge  that  her  mother 
was  a  liar  haunted  her  for  years.  And  later  she 
became  very  untruthful.  She  married,  and  after 
the  birth  of  her  first  child,  she  was  ill  with  a  form 
of  nervous  trouble  diagnosed  as  Dementia  Prae- 
eox.  In  her  analysis  the  question  was  always  pre- 
senting itself  in  the  unconscious.  Why  was  her 
mother  untruthful!  Was  every  one  untruthful? 
Was  her  father  to  blame!  In  her  sleep  she  saw 
some  one  (herself)  carrying  on  her  head  a  figure 
of  a  woman  (her  mother  and  herself),  a  composite 
personality,  wound  up  and  swathed  like  a  mummy, 
as  she  had  seen  Italian  women  carrying  burdens 
on  their  heads,  and  so  we  discovered  the  cause  of 
the  dementia.  The  burden  that  was  too  heavy  for 
her  brain  to  carry  was  her  mother's  timidity  and 
weakness  or  childishness  of  character,  which  had 
made  her  afraid  to  tell  her  neighbour  the  hat  had 
cost  only  ten  dollars,  in  the  wish  to  appear  as 
wealthy  and  powerful  as  the  neighbour. 

THE   WISH   IN  LYING  AND   STEALING 

An  untruthful  person  has  always  something  in 
the  unconscious  which  he  unconsciously  wishes  to 

255 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

hide.  Such  a  person  lacks  a  large  enough  outlet 
for  his  energy,  the  emotions  are  blocked  by  some 
restrictions  and  there  occurs  what  we  call  a  re- 
pression. As  the  cause  of  a  repression  is  hidden 
from  the  consciousness,  it  follows  that  punish- 
ments, reformatories,  religious  advice,  frequently 
increase  the  untruthfulness.  It  has  been  consid- 
ered as  a  bad  habit,  as  an  indication  of  weakness 
of  character,  but  it  is  not  yet  generally  known 
that  the  remedy  consists  in  a  proper  method  of 
education  through  an  analytic  procedure  and 
broadening  of  the  person's  life  through  larger  in- 
terests. Likewise  in  kleptomania  there  are  emo- 
tional complications.  Always  there  is  an  unful- 
filled wish  in  the  unconscious,  and  frequently  of 
such  a  character  that  the  wish  fulfillment  is  im- 
possible. *'The  mechanism  of  kleptomania  is  as 
follows : 

1.  Relatively  normal  development  with  inclina- 
tion to  temporary  regressions  of  libido  to  self-love 
or  self-pity. 

2.  Patient  reaches  a  stage  in  life  where  a  par- 
ticular effort  would  be  needed  in  order  to  be 
adapted  to  the  requirements  of  his  existence. 

3.  He  shrinks  back  from  this  necessity,  because 
it  seems  to  him  to  be  too  expensive,  or  to  require 
a  sacrifice  of  the  infantile  wish  to  have  everything 
given  to  him  by  the  all-providing  mother  prin- 
ciple. 

4.  He  forgets  (represses)  the  thought  of  this 

256 


TEACHING  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

necessity  of  effort  and  turns  his  attentions,  uncon- 
sciously to 

5.  Unconscious  infantile  and  archaic  wishes, 
which,  fed  by  the  libido  that  is  not  urged  toward 
the  difficult  accomplishment,  arise  in  place  of  the 
fulfilling  of  the  task. 

6.  He  tries  to  repress  those  wishes,  but  they 
break  through  and  force  him  to 

7.  Steal.  This  only  shows  that  the  poor  fellow 
must  steal  because  he  has  such  a  psychological 
past. 

8.  He  need  not  steal  if  he  would  return  to  his 
serious  task''  ^  and  could  find  satisfaction  in  doing 
it.  The  spirit  of  rivalry  and  competition  pro- 
motes growth. 

It  has  already  been  explained  that  telling  a  per- 
son of  a  moral  defect  never  cures  him,  it  is  only  by 
having  the  mirror  held  before  him  in  a  psycho- 
analysis of  the  unconscious  so  that  he  sees  there 
deformed,  unethical  wishes,  or  perhaps  wishes 
which  have  been  repressed  and  which  should  come 
to  light  for  greater  growth  of  character. 

A  group  of  individuals  who  lack  continuity  of 
purpose  and  show  no  capacity  for  continuous  ex- 
penditure of  effort  in  any  one  direction  generally 
exhibit  anomalies  of  character  such  as  shiftless- 
ness  and  even  alcoholism.  Their  life  ^4s  one  long 
contradiction  between  the  apparent  wealth  of 
means  and  poverty  of  results.''    Also  there  are 

1  Quoted  from  letter  of  Dr.  Jung  to  author. 

257 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

many  weak  characters  who  are  led  into  criminal 
acts  and  who  seem  to  lack  the  ordinary  moral  in- 
hibitions. Perhaps  they  have  been  ethically  de- 
fective from  birth.  Perhaps  the  moral  conscious- 
ness is  lacking  because  of  poisonous  moral  atmos- 
phere or  of  a  starved  body  and  soul  in  childhood. 
This  group  of  psychopathic  individuals  is  an 
enormous  social  problem,  and  the  solution  of  these 
most  difficult  enigmas  will  come  only  when  the  im- 
portance of  the  nervous  make-up  of  the  individual 
is  more  appreciated. 

Another  difficulty  which  parents  meet  is  in 
teaching  children  the  value  of  money,  and  its  right 
and  wrong  uses.  In  every  life  there  is  a  craving 
and  longing  for  something,  an  unsatisfied  feeling 
which  we  try  to  appease  in  various  ways,  in  food, 
in  reading,  in  restless  wandering,  in  patronizing 
soda  fountains,  in  ice  cream  sundaes,  in  alcohol,  in 
clothes,  in  short  almost  anything  money  will  buy. 
It  is  this  thing  called  life  we  are  searching  for, 
and  working  for  the  power  to  express  ourselves 
causes  many  a  person  to  become  a  spendthrift. 
Money  is  the  easiest  thing  to  spend;  it  promises 
quicker  results,  but  as  we  are  frequently  spend- 
thrifts of  our  energy  in  using  it  for  unproductive 
efforts,  these  acts  are  comparable  to  a  child's  mas- 
turbation. It  is  verily  a  form  of  self-abuse,  as  for 
instance  when  we  are  **Jack  of  all  trades  but 
master  of  none."  We  play  at  learning  in  study- 
ing various  subjects  for  a  short  time,  or  attempt 

258 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

several  kinds  of  work  and  are  not  a  success  in 
any.  It  is  akin  to  the  child's  play,  but  not  to  the 
work  of  the  master. 

The  parents  surrounded  by  luxury  will  find  it 
quite  impossible  to  teach  their  children  economy. 
The  parents  may  talk  economy,  and  even  practice 
economy  in  some  self-denial,  but  the  child  is  much 
too  clever  to  be  fooled  by  the  parent's  *^ bluff.'' 
In  too  many  cases  the  parents  need  to  learn  the 
truth  about  themselves.  The  father  who  criti- 
cizes his  son  for  unnecessary  expenses  and  yet  al- 
lows himself  luxurious  hotels  in  travelling,  lux- 
urious home  surroundings  and  expensive  clothes 
for  his  family,  feels  that  he  has  a  right  to  his  own 
money  and  that  similar  extravagance  would  be 
unwise  for  his  children;  and  he  is  quite  right  in 
thinking  so.  In  allowing  himself  habits  of  waste 
'and  idleness  he  extends  them  to  his  children,  but 
as  his  children  learn  more  by  imitation  than  pre- 
cept they  will  not  understand  the  parental  reason- 
ing. 

The  mother  who  dearly  loves  to  go  to  ^^a  nice 
quiet  place"  for  a  week's  rest,  holds  out  the  same 
prospect  to  her  children  and  expects  them  to  feel 
the  same  delight.  Poor,  foolish  little  mother  with 
her  lack  of  reasoning  power !  Her  children  need 
activity  and  she  needs  rest,  yet  she  sees  no  dif- 
ference between  her  needs  and  her  children's  and 
is  disappointed  with  their  unsympathetic  re- 
marks.  Likewise,  the  parents,  more  especially  the 

259 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

mother,  who  has  bought  the  children's  clothes 
since  their  infancy,  never  try  at  the  same  time  to 
teach  their  children  values  of  material,  but  over- 
rule the  child's  wish  in  selection  until  such  a  time 
comes  in  the  adolescent  years  that  nature  is  push- 
ing the  child  away  from  its  childhood,  when  there 
is  often  rebellion  on  the  child's  part.  There  is  no 
more  pitiful  sight  than  to  see  the  children's  ef- 
forts in  these  adolescent  years  to  free  themselves 
from  their  childhood  in  attempts  at  self-assertion, 
independent  opinions,  desire  for  freedom  and 
space  to  roam,  while  the  parents  hold  fast  to  their 
children  with  no  idea  of  helping  them  but  only  to 
restrict,  threaten,  punish  and  make  things  diffi- 
cult and  impossible  until  the  child  is  driven  to  des- 
peration and  ends  with  criminal  acts,  or  sinks 
back  to  the  child  condition  the  parent  likes  so 
much  and  therefore  becomes  *  ^nervous,"  or,  as 
in  some  cases,  he  has  even  been  judged  defective. 
Underneath  all  the  outward  manifestations  of 
effort  to  satisfy  the  hunger  is  the  underlying 
craving  for  power.  Mankind  have  not  learned  yet 
that  they  can  attain  it  only  by  struggle  and  sus- 
tained effort.  To  teach  our  children,  by  example, 
habits  of  thrift  and  industry  is  more  important 
than  the  college  education.  Always  to  hold  out 
the  helping  hand  in  speaking  words  of  encourage- 
ment for  work  well  done  will  lead  the  young  life 
on  and  up  more  than  the  rebukes  and  criticism 
so  frequent  in  the  home  environment. 

260 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

GKOWTH  OF   INDIVIDUALITY 

Teaching  of  right  and  wrong  can  never  be  im- 
parted in  the  form  of  lessons.  The  real  teaching 
comes  from  the  subtle  suggestions  of  truth 
through  the  natural  processes — directly  through 
persons  and  things — of  the  environment.  It  is 
the  truth  of  our  complete  being,  of  our  personal 
relationship  with  the  true  centre  of  gravity  of  our 
life  which  our  children  absorb  from  us.  This  con- 
duct of  right  living  is  attained  in  childhood  by  a 
daily  life  in  a  place  where  the  truth  of  the  spirit- 
ual world  is  felt  as  an  unseen  influence,  and  is  not 
obscured  by  a  crowd  of  necessities  assuming  arti- 
ficial importance.  More  truth  is  gained  by  the 
child  surrounded  by  uncomplaining  adversity 
and  hardship  than  by  the  one  surrounded  by  lux- 
ury. By  ^'uncomplaining  adversity''  I  mean  the 
person  who  does  not  blame  his  adversities  and 
hardships  to  his  surroundings  but  works  to  con- 
quer and  overcome  them.  The  more  spiritual 
truth  we  gain  the  more  we  have  to  give.  But 
when  a  man  adopts  it  as  his  profession  to  teach 
truth  to  others  he  should  remember  that  a  path 
is  not  made  by  the  caprice  of  one  individual. 
Instead  of  calling  to  the  crowd  to  leave  their  path 
to  follow  his  he  had  better  first  follow  the  path 
with  them  and  live  their  life  to  learn  their  experi- 
ences, that  he  may  teach  from  practice  rather  than 
theory. 

261 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NEEVOUS  CHILD 

The  parent  who  would  give  the  end-results  of 
his  life  to  his  children,  hoping  they  will  profit  by 
his  experience  and  begin  their  lives  where  his 
stops,  is  about  as  unreasonable  as  would  be  an 
athlete  who  expected  his  children  to  be  born  with 
their  father's  muscular  development.  Each  child 
must  start  the  lesson  of  life  at  the  beginning. 
The  scientist's  or  the  millionaire's  son  has  to  be 
born  as  helpless  and  ignorant  as  the  poorest 
child  and  each  one  must  begin  the  struggle  for 
the  existence  of  his  distinct  individuality  as 
against  the  individuality  of  his  environment.  It 
is  a  dual  relationship  of  the  child,  with  himself 
and  the  universe.  The  vital  interest  of  the  child  is 
constantly  enlarging  in  scope  and  intensity  and 
the  consciousness  is  spreading  over  a  larger  area. 
This  expansion  of  the  individuality  has  to  be  con- 
stantly maintained  through  the  complex  relation- 
ship of  a  life  emerging  from  a  prenatal  existence 
into  a  world  of  separate  being.  The  more  perfect 
the  harmony  of  this  world  through  sympathy  of 
unity  and  separateness,  the  more  perfect  becomes 
the  growth  of  individuality.  It  is  an  evil  hour 
when  this  inter-relationship  is  checked  or  inter- 
fered with.  Therefore,  life  on  its  negative  side 
has  to  maintain  a  separateness  from  all  else, 
while,  on  the  positive  side,  it  maintains  unity  with 
the  universe  of  life.  In  this  unity  lies  the  fulfil- 
ment of  existence. 

The  mind  as  well  as  the  body  has  its  negative 
262 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  xlND  WEONG 

and  positive  aspects  of  separateness  and  unity. 
The  dualism  of  consciousness  in  a  child,  as  in  an 
animal,  consists  of  what  is  and  what  is  desired, 
whereas  in  the  adult,  it  changes  to  a  conflict  be- 
tween what  is  and  is  desired  and  what  is  and  what 
should  he  desired.  "What  is  desired  dwells  in  the 
heart  of  the  natural  life  which  we  share  with  ani- 
mals and  of  which  we  are  unconscious,  but  that 
which  should  he  desired  belongs  to  the  life  which 
is  beyond  and  must  be  won. 

The  only  discipline  worth  having  is  a  natural 
one  got  by  interest  and  habit.  We  require  order 
and  attention  from  children,  and  demand  that 
higher  discipline  which  is  habitual  and  has  become 
so  by  the  operations  of  interest.  Sincere  en- 
deavour and  honesty  of  purpose  can  be  relied 
upon  only  under  conditions  that  favour  their  con- 
continuation.  Force  or  compulsion  of  any  kind, 
however  necessary  it  may  be,  blunts  honesty,  dulls 
the  zeal  of  the  most  whole-hearted  efforts,  and, 
if  it  comes  with  too  much  strength,  will  spoil  all. 
The  child  works  for  the  love  of  doing,  his  hearty 
interest  is  a  powerful  force  which  will  eventually 
carry  a  heavy  load  to  its  destination.  The  sum 
total  of  existence  is  to  do  everything  with 
one's  whole  heart;  the  child  will  do  so  if  we 
do  not  interfere  by  our  criticisms  and  our 
mistaken  ideas  of  help.  Beware  of  attempting 
to  make  water  run  up  a  hill,  instead  of  flowing 
around  it. 

263 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

LIVE  AND  LET   LIVE 

When  the  child  *s  growing  mind  does  not  work 
in  an  orderly  manner  and  scorns  systematic  prog- 
ress, but  leaps  back  and  forth  over  the  field  of 
study  and  discipline,  now  soaring  like  a  skylark 
full  of  enthusiasm,  now  down  in  the  blackness  of 
despair,  feeling  hopeless  and  helpless — it  is  ob- 
vious to  me  where  the  trouble  lies.  Consciously 
or  unconsciously,  the  parent  or  teacher  has 
worked  on  his  own  lines,  not  in  and  for  the  chil- 
dren. There  may  have  been  a  beautiful  system 
with  a  course  of  bringing  up,  schemed,  guided  and 
ordered  by  admirable  theories,  but  failing  to  in- 
terest the  child.  Let  us  remember  that  without 
interest  there  is  no  learning  but  only  a  mechani- 
cal poll-parrot  method  of  memorizing  with  no  as- 
similation of  the  truth  or  meaning  in  the  words. 
If  the  same  thought,  memorized  in  certain  words, 
is  presented  in  other  words,  the  child  will  not 
understand,  nor  can  the  poll-parrot-learned  sen- 
tences be  told  in  other  words.  A  pupil  giving  the 
definition  of  ** physics"  used  the  words  she  had 
learned  in  her  school  book  and  could  not  accept 
any  other,  although  she  understood  none  of  what 
she  had  learned.  Truth  can  be  made  attractive, 
whether  presented  in  textbooks  or  lessons  from 
experience.  But  when  lessons  are  made  a  mere 
drudgery,  with  all  the  child's  wishes  thinned  out, 
there  is  no  value  to  life  for  the  child.    The  child 

264 


TEACHING  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

must  live  fully,  we  all  must  live  fully,  by  doing 
those  things  thoroughly  we  have  a  natural  desire 
to  do,  upon  the  principle  of  *4ive  and  let  live." 
Thus  we  do  not  hinder  others  who  have  the  same 
rights  of  existence  as  we  have,  nor  impair  any  of 
our  own  energies  in  any  of  the  ways  described. 
Right  and  wrong  in  the  adult  life  is  the  same  as 
in  the  child  ^s. 

The  game  must  be  played  fair,  the  rules  obeyed, 
and  what  is  more,  the  sense  of  fair  play  must  be 
felt  as  giving  for  value  received.  The  gamble  of 
getting  something  for  nothing  is  a  dangerous 
policy  to  pursue,  leading  to  false  opinions  and 
false  values.  The  directions  toward  right  are  the 
promptings  of  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, 
the  surge  of  nature  is  subject  to  the  control  of 
reason,  but  reason  is  not  the  compelling  force. 
Thoughts  and  deeds  can  be  judged  as  right  and 
wrong  only  as  they  further  or  retard  the  one  end 
of  Ufe,  which  is  more  life.  To  live  in  accord  with 
our  nature,  giving  scope  and  exercise  to  every 
power  and  faculty,  brings  the  positive  feeling  of 
well-being,  which  comes  only  with  the  fitness  of 
every  nerve  and  muscle,  the  negative  of  which  is 
the  functional  neurosis.  There  is  a  fullness  of 
life  that  can  come  only  to  the  spirit  of  mankind  in 
the  free  play  of  aU  his  natural  desires,  controlled 
but  not  repressed.  We  should  remember  that 
**vice  is  only  virtue  misdirected,  power  ill- 
used." 

265 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

THE   ** rotten''   disposition 

We  must  keep  alive  this  fullness  of  living,  not 
let  it  sink  into  indulgence,  indolence  or  inaction. 
If  the  energies  are  pent  up  which  should  be 
brought  out  in  daily  play,  they  accumulate,  and 
as  the  energy,  the  libido,  is  the  most  vital  and 
powerful  force  upon  which  we  depend  for  our 
well-being,  an  accumulation  often  means  there 
must  be  some  kind  of  explosion  when  it  will  come 
out.  The  greater  the  accumulation  the  greater 
must  be  our  effort  to  get  rid  of  it  or  it  will  be- 
come stifling,  insufferable  and  poisonous  to  the 
moral  well-being.  The  assimilation  of  knowledge 
and  experiences  in  thought  and  reasoning  brings 
an  emotional  reaction  and  is  analogous  to  the 
process  of  metabolism  by  which  our  bodies  live  in 
a  continuous  process  of  change  and  readjustment. 
As  the  waste  matters  of  the  body  are  eliminated 
in  proportion  as  living  tissue  is  created,  so  must 
our  mental  and  spiritual  life  go  on  by  performing 
equally  its  two-sided  function  of  emotional  as- 
similation and  elimination.  Buried  and  repressed 
emotions  which  are  retained  in  the  unconscious, 
like  food  retained  in  the  body  unassimilated,  de- 
compose, decay.  A  buried  emotion  even  rots.  We 
hear  the  phrase,  *^a  rotten  disposition"  without 
realizing  how  literally  true  it  is.  Good  impulses 
cannot  spring  from  a  '* rotten''  disposition;  but  it 
is  wrong  to  condemn  such  a  person.     As  well 

266 


TEACHING  OF  EIGHT  AND  WRONG 

condemn  a  person  with  blood-poisoning  when 
aseptic  surgery  is  needed,  and  the  **  rotten"  dis- 
position needs  aseptic  mental  surgery. 

There  is  a  belief  prevalent  among  hard-headed 
business  men  and  capable,  efficient  women,  that 
because  they  are  doing  really  good  work  in  their 
line  and  their  own  life  is  successful,  they  are  quite 
capable  of  managing  their  family  affairs.  They 
are  frequently  the  cause  of  this  rotten  disposition 
in  their  children,  being  about  as  able  to  keep  the 
disposition  of  their  children  aseptic  as  they  would 
be  to  use  the  surgeon's  aseptic  dressings.  We 
know  we  cannot  make  a  pear  tree  out  of  an  apple 
tree,  but  think  we  can  make  a  lawyer  out  of  a 
conmiercial  man,  a  doctor  out  of  a  man  with  lit- 
erary ability.  This  belief  extends  from  the  head 
of  a  family  to  the  ruler  of  a  nation,  who,  because 
his  government  has  reached  a  high  state  of  effi- 
ciency wishes  to  govern  all  the  other  nations  in 
his  way.  He  who  covers  the  most  ground  is  not 
the  best  traveller,  but  he  who  has  the  most  delight 
in  his  journey,  has  lived  each  hour  to  its  fullest ; 
for  he  will  have  added  so  much  to  his  equipment 
that  he  will  have  more  to  give  for  the  betterment 
of  the  race. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  who  has  covered  as  much 
ground  as  possible  will  have  so  exhausted  him- 
self that,  far  from  being  able  to  add  to  the  better- 
ment, he  will  need  to  ask  aid  to  recuperate  his 
wasted  energies.     One  who  sows  more  than  he 

267 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUiS  CHELD 

can  reap,  and  will  not  allow  others  to  reap  it,  is 
like  the  ruler  who  has  delusions  of  his  own  power 
and  will  not  share  and  co-operate  with  others. 
jOn  such  occasions  new  ideals  must  be  set  up  by 
those  ruled,  and  hope  takes  another  direction. 
"When  the  ideal  must  change,  both  for  children 
and  nations,  creeds,  doctrines  and  opinions  are 
remodelled.  It  is  a  spirit  of  revolution  which  de- 
velops and  represents  a  clearing  away  of  old 
dogmas  of  the  perfection  of  rulers,  a  breaking 
away  from  bondage  of  authority,  an  upsetting  of 
ihe  tables  from  which  the  nourishment  is  gone. 
It  is  a  hard  hour  in  the  life  of  a  child  when  he 
discovers  his  parents  over-stepping  the  limits  of 
propriety  as  originally  bounded.  If  the  child  can 
make  a  restatement  in  his  own  mind  of  the  direc- 
tion and  aim  to  follow,  his  adolescence  and  re- 
adjustment will  be  accomplished.  Sooner  or  later 
the  child  must  see  the  flaws  in  the  parental  make- 
up, and  the  parent  is  wise  who  does  not  pretend 
perfection,  but,  when  necessary,  forestalls  that 
knowledge  by  admitting  his  mistakes  in  judgment 
and  with  the  child  searches  for  the  right  or  wrong 
method  by  discussions  or  experiments.  Interest 
must  be  the  starting-point  in  all  we  do,  or  we  shall 
not  do  well.  The  urge  of  necessity  arouses  inter- 
est and  ambition ;  the  ambitious  child  will  be  an 
apt  pupil. 


268 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

*'Self  comes  to  itself  only  through  society,  and 
as  a  member  of  society.  The  self  apart  from  other 
selves  is  nothing." 

The  person  who  is  at  all  concerned  with  psy- 
chology will  find  it  especially  interesting  to  study 
in  himself  the  growth  of  knowledge  of  his  own 
self,  and  his  gradual  formation  of  self-regarding 
sentiments  because  this  particular  phase  of  mental 
development  has  an  obvious  bearing,  not  only 
upon  his  own  practical  problems  but  also  upon 
those  who  constitute  his  family  and  intimates.  It 
exemplifies  in  a  very  striking  manner  the  depend- 
ence of  the  individual  upon  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member. 

We  are  apt  to  think  nothing  is  so  directly  the 
private  possession  of  each  one  of  us  as  his  own 
self  and  the  idea  of  himself,  and  yet  in  fact,  if 
we  were  isolated  and  impervious  individuals  we 
would  never  be  persons  at  all.  As  though  to 
guard  against  too  much  shutting  up  of  one's  self 
away  from  mankind,  a  deep  instinct,  the  herd  in- 
stinct, is  implanted  in  us.  The  distinctions  each 
one  of  us  draws  between  himself  and  other  per- 
sons and  things  are  not  by  any  means  so  clear  or 

269 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUiS  CHH^D 

consistent  as  we  often  suppose,  and  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  psychology  to  inquire  whether  our  knowl- 
edge is  consistent  and  reasonable.  Psychology 
shows  us  that  we  distinguish  ourselves  from  others 
and  that  we  regard  ourselves  as  permanently  on 
this  side  of  insanity,  although  we  cannot  say  as 
much  for  the  other  members  of  society.  **Am  I 
the  man  I  think  I  amT'  would  be  a  very  valuable 
question  for  each  individual  to  ask  himself.  The 
supposedly  loveliest  mother  may  be  weakly  in- 
dulgent, the  stern,  fussy  discipline  of  parent  or 
teacher  may  be  hiding  the  weakness  of  a  bully  who 
would  run  from  a  man  of  his  size. 


GROWTH  OF  SELF 

Every  seed,  whether  plant,  animal  or  human 
being,  contains  a  form  of  life  which  cannot  be 
changed  (temperament).  We  accept  that  fact  in 
growing  our  flowers  and  vegetables,  putting  cer- 
tain ones  in  the  shade,  others  in  strong  sunlight. 
"We  know  the  luscious  melons  will  only  grow  to  fine 
crispness  in  rich,  heavy  loam.  We  give  our  ani- 
mals the  food  they  need  for  their  best  develop- 
ment, the  horse  has  his  hay  and  oats,  the  cow  her 
corn  fodder  and  bran  mash.  We  do  not  blame  the 
melons  for  not  growing  where  the  celery  will,  nor 
kick  the  horse  because  he  needs  oats  when  the 
cow  does  not,  but  we  blame  our  children  when  they 
do  not  thrive  on  the  treatment  we  mete  out  to 

270 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

them.  If  we  had  to  pay  a  large  price,  many  thou- 
sand dollars,  before  we  were  allowed  to  have  a 
child,  would  we  feel  we  possessed  a  greater  treas- 
ure in  each  child?  The  mother  gives  in  sacrifice 
and  suffering  and  risks  her  life  for  each  child, 
the  father  gives  nothing.  If  he  is  the  fine  strong 
character  of  the  ideal  man  he  will  give  of  sym 
pathy  and  deepest  love  when  he  sees  his  wife  in 
the  throes  of  childbirth,  the  child  will  be  a  divine 
proof  of  her  love  for  him  and  make  their  union 
sacred. 

But  too  often  mankind  accepts  children  in  a 
spirit  of  accumulation,  and  is  proud  to  show  its 
reproductive  power.  Fine  children  bespeak  a 
clean  life  and  fine  parents.  When  the  child  is 
accepted  merely  as  an  addition  to  his  father's  pos- 
sessions, or  as  a  care  and  problem  to  a  tired 
mother,  the  child  will  necessarily  become  a  prob- 
lem, instead  of  a  fine,  healthy  human  animal,  and 
may  become  a  nervous  child.  ^  ^  What  is  the  matter 
with  the  Jones  family!  Some  of  them  are  always 
sick,  they  are  really  tiresome,''  we  frequently  hear 
said.  The  Jones  family  are  to  be  pitied,  they  may 
be  very  conscientious  and  doing  their  best.  But 
while  the  children  are  being  *4oved  to  death"  by 
one  part  of  the  family,  and  the  other  part  is 
preaching — ^' Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child,'* 
they  are  being  pulled  two  ways  and  cannot  become 
firmly  planted  for  good  growth. 

We  do  not  generally  suppose  that  even  the  more 
271 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERV0U8  CHILD 

intelligent  animals,  such  as  the  dog,  reflect  on 
themselves  and  their  character.  We  probably  ad- 
mit, however,  that  in  perception  they  seem  to 
distinguish  their  bodies  from  all  other  things  and 
in  some  rudimentary  way  to  recognize  them  as 
their  own.  But  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  some 
conscious  beings  do  not  make  even  this  elemen- 
tary distinction,  and  that  their  bodies  always  re- 
main as  strange  to  them  as  its  tail  seems  to  be  to 
the  kitten  who  chases  it,  or  its  toes  to  the  baby 
who  tries  to  cut  his  teeth  on  them.  We  adults 
ordinarily  think  of  ourselves  as  slightly  em- 
bodied. 

We  may  at  times  distinguish  between  soul  and 
body  and  regard  the  former  as  particularly  our 
own,  but,  when  for  example,  we  say  we  are  going 
to  read,  or  play  a  game  of  golf,  or  we  have  a  head- 
ache, the  body  seems  a  very  prominent  part  of 
ourselves.  We  could  not  play  golf  without  a  body. 
Could  we  read  without  a  body?  Shut  your  eyes 
and  read  from  memory  a  sign  painted  on  a  fence. 
The  eyes  have  been  educated  by  the  \frsLm  to  read, 
but  without  a  brain  the  eyes  could  not  have  learned 
to  read.  In  a  word,  we  think  of  ourselves  as  being 
a  body,  we  see  it,  while  the  awareness  of  our  per- 
sonal identity  depends  not  only  upon  the  sensory 
experiences  which  we  are  constantly  receiving 
from  various  parts  of  our  body,  but  also  upon  the 
emotional  experiences  which  we  have  received. 
Then  the  child  learning  how  to  run,  to  throw  a 

272 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

ball,  to  dance  to  music,  learns  not  merely  how  to 
do  things,  hut  what  it  feels  like  to  do  them.  Edu- 
cation consists  not  merely  in  doing,  but  in  feeling. 
The  rosebud  must  feel  the  warm  sun's  rays  before 
expanding  into  the  blossom  and  so  the  budding  out 
or  building  out  of  the  self  and  character  is  aided 
by  the  intelligent  sympathy  and  complete  under- 
standing of  parents  and  teachers.  Thus  the 
process  of  learning  to  understand  oneself  and  of 
learning  to  understand  others  are  really  one.  It 
is  useless  for  physician,  teacher  or  parent  to  at- 
tempt working  with  the  emotions  of  others  with- 
out first  understanding  his  own  by  a  thorough 
psychoanalysis.  That  should  be  required  of  every 
life,  especially  in  those  attempting  human  guid- 
ance. We  cannot  come  to  understand  the  be- 
haviour and  emotions  and  motives  of  others  ex- 
cept by  interpreting  them  in  the  light  of  our 
own.  *^The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man.** 
(Pope.) 

We  see  the  children's  conception  of  themselves 
reflect  the  attitude  of  others  toward  them,  nor  is 
this  much  less  true  of  adults.  Few  of  us  can  with- 
stand flattery  if  long  continued.  We  may  resist  at 
first,  but  soon  we  fancy  ourselves  to  be  all  that 
we  hear.  In  schools  and  at  home  this  is  important, 
especially  among  adolescents,  who  are  generally 
very  sensitive  to  the  opinion  of  their  seniors  and 
equals.  It  is  remarkable  how  often  a  boy  on  leav- 
ing school  and  entering  a  new  circle  of  acquaint- 

273 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

ance  will  belie  a  firmly  established  scbool  reputa- 
tion, particularly  if  it  was  bad.  He  told  a  few 
lies  when  he  first  went  to  school,  or  perhaps 
offended  against  a  schoolboy's  code  of  morals, 
and  from  that  time  he  was  counted  a  liar  or  a 
sneak  and  knew  that  every  one  counted  him  as  one, 
so  he  comes  to  think  of  himself  as  worthless  and 
continues  to  act  as  worthless.  The  same  thing 
happens  when  a  delicate  or  nervous  child  is  sent 
away  from  home.  He  will  grow  and  thrive  until 
he  meets  the  same  home  influence.  When  he  meets 
the  original  obstruction,  which  previously  blocked 
his  flow  of  health,  he  becomes  ill  or  nervous  again. 
But  when  he  comes  out  into  the  world,  and  hon- 
esty and  honour  are  expected  of  him,  his  conduct 
improves  mth  the  conception  of  his  own  char- 
acter, which  he  gets  by  comparison  with  what  he 
learns  of  others.  The  schoolmaster's  problem  is 
difficult,  no  doubt,  in  dealing  with  such  a  boy. 
Punishments  and  pious  talks  are  often  equally 
useless ;  the  punishment  will  be  no  encouragement, 
and  as  the  child  cannot  act  with  the  purpose  of  an 
adult  he  acts  largely  on  impulse.  If  the  punish- 
ment is  too  heavy  to  suit  the  mental  power  of  the 
child  it  merely  has  a  stunting  effect.  A  pious  talk 
is  usually  above  the  child's  reach.  The  master 
should  at  least  remember  this,  that  whenever  he 
shows  a  boy  he  has  lost  all  confidence  in  him, 
he  can  never  do  to  that  boy  anything  but 
harm. 

274 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

NEGATIVISM 

In  previous  pages  we  noted  the  tendency  of  tlie 
child  to  imitation,  which  enables  it  to  live  through 
the  experiences  of  others,  as  his  first  means  of 
fitting  himself  into  his  social  surroundings.  We 
now  have  to  note  another  tendency,  namely, 
opposition,  as  it  is  often  called — technically, 
negativism.  In  the  small  baby's  anger  there  is 
implied  a  kind  of  opposition  to  the  world,  but  the 
tendency  to  opposition  most  frequently  shows  that 
the  individual  has  been  prevented  from  fitting  him- 
self into  his  social  surroundings  and  in  opposing 
them  is  following  the  instinct  of  self-assertion. 
These  tendencies  of  the  child  are  termed  obstinacy 
and  showing-off,  but  in  asserting  what  is  at  first 
a  very  rudimentary  self,  the  child  enriches  its 
knowledge  of  itself  and  others.  This  self-assertive 
tendency  is  shown  by  a  child,  even  a  very  young 
child,  when  he  feels  himself  misunderstood,  among 
people  either  younger,  weaker  or  less  capable.  In 
the  presence  of  superiority,  this  tendency  to  self- 
assertion  expresses  itself  in  bashfulness  or  feel- 
ings of  inferiority.  Never  make  your  child  or  any 
person  feel  inferior,  endeavour  always  to  lift  up 
by  the  desire  to  learn.  You  are  as  weak  as  the 
child  if  you  show  your  superiority. 

In  actual  life  the  tendency  to  opposition  may 
take  an  anti-social  direction.  We  see  it  in  the 
man  who  seeks  his  advantage  at  the  expense  of 

275 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHH^D 

others,  and  who  in  his  unconscious  thought  is  still 
trying  to  accumulate,  to  feed  the  unsatisfied  wants 
of  childhood.  He  thinks  only  of  himself,  we  call 
him  selfish,  but  he  is  searching  for  power  and  is 
able  to  express  it  only  in  dollars  and  cents.  We 
see  the  anti-social  tendency  in  castles  in  the  air, 
which  he  has  not  found  in  reality.  The  eccentric 
appears  unusual,  he  does  not  follow  the  herd,  he 
has  been  trampled  on  and  is  bleating  for  mother 
to  sympathize  with  him.  Opposition  frequently 
hides  ignorance,  for  if  he  did  not  oppose  he  feels 
he  might  betray  his  failures,  so  he  figuratively 
builds  a  wall  of  what  successes  he  has  had  and 
hides  behind  it,  shouting  out  his  opinions  on  sub- 
jects, the  meaning  of  which  is  hidden  from  himself. 
The  world  calls  such  a  person  conceited.  If  man- 
kind simply  accepted  all  opinions  and  imitated  one 
another's  habits,  no  progress  would  be  possible. 
Initiative,  inventiveness,  obstinacy,  opposition, 
are  all  efforts  for  self-assertion  and  are  necessary 
to  the  most  unselfish  men  if  they  are  to  do  any- 
thing great,  as  necessary  to  the  man  who  fights  for 
justice  and  honesty  as  to  the  man  who  fights  for 
his  private  gain,  which  is  for  honesty  for  him- 
self. 

Both  self-satisfaction  and  lack  of  self-confidence 
in  either  child  or  man  are  a  hindrance  to  progress, 
not  in  the  process  of  learning,  but  in  the  growth  of 
character.  When  the  tendencies  to  self-assertion 
and  its  opposite  are  properly  balanced,  their  com- 

276 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

bination  is  a  constant  incentive  to  progress.  In 
psychoanalysis  a  person  is  enabled  to  see  bow  far 
be  falls  sbort  of  tbe  required  balance,  be  learns  tbe 
cause  of  tbe  ineffective  struggle  to  attain  tbe  de- 
sired result.  As  long  as  be  measures  bimself  up 
witb  wbat  be  is  and  wbat  be  ougbt  to  be,  be  will 
pusb  on  until  a  bigber  stage  is  reacbed ;  wben  be 
becomes  self-respecting  in  tbe  full  sense  be  no 
longer  wonders  wbat  otbers  will  think  of  him,  but 
wbat  he  will  think  of  bimself  if  be  behaves  in  a 
certain  way. 

Tbe  child  or  individual  who  lacks  confidence 
fails  to  improve  just  because  be  thinks  bimself 
incapable  of  improving,  and  tbe  difficulty  in  such 
a  case  is  that  more  individual  treatment  is  needed 
than  can  be  given  a  child  in  classwork,  or  tbe  indi- 
vidual who  is  treated  by  textbook  knowledge. 
Step  by  step  must  such  a  case  be  helped,  showing 
that  tbe  patient  is  able  to  do  what  seemed  impos- 
sible, until  be  feels  more  belief  in  bimself.  Much 
caution,  learned  from  experience,  is  necessary  in 
leading  such  a  case  to  self-confidence,  or  it  may 
produce  a  kind  of  bidden  priggish  conceit  in  him, 
leaving  him  outwardly  as  ineffective  as  ever. 
Dream  analysis  is  tbe  only  method  of  accurately 
watching  tbe  progress  of  tbe  individual  in  bis 
restoration  to  confidence.  Tbe  reasons  for  such  a 
condition  of  lacking  confidence  in  one 's  ability  are 
many,  sometimes  from  unbalanced  discipline  at 
home,  often  from  bullying  in  school. 

277 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

OVER-CONFIDENCE 

Exaggerated  self-confidence  is  even  more  deadly 
to  a  well-rounded  life,  for  he  who  is  already  per- 
fect in  his  own  estimation  has  not  incentive  for 
improvement.  And  as  the  world  does  not  find 
him  perfect,  hut  is  rather  hored  by  his  conceited 
self-satisfaction,  he  feels  he  is  not  appreciated  or 
understood.  Mild  delusions  of  grandeur  and  per- 
secution are  found  and  the  patient  retires  into 
himself  with  an  outward  form  of  work  which 
means  nothing  to  the  world,  hut  affords  the  great- 
est satisfaction  to  the  patient.  The  work  chosen 
by  a  person  suffering  from  exaggerated  self-satis- 
faction or  conceit  is  a  symbol  of  the  cause  of  the 
conceit.  It  frequently  takes  the  form  of  religion, 
among  scientific  minds  it  takes  the  form  of  re- 
search work,  not  the  legitimate  research  of  the 
true  scientist  who  is  searching  for  vital  truth  that 
helps  mankind,  but  the  search  for  an  answer  to  the 
question  why  satisfaction  is  lacking  in  the  pa- 
tient's life.  Mathematicians  suffering  nervous 
breakdowns  discover  in  a  psychoanalysis  that 
they  have  been  figuring  on  the  solution  of 
their  unknown  personal  problems.  In  one  in- 
stance, a  professor  of  mathematics,  unmarried, 
could  not  listen  to  music  without  suffering  from 
great  excitement  and  pain  in  the  head.  Fear  that 
he  would  hear  music  haunted  and  gradually  over- 
came him,  he  lost  all  reasoning  power,  and  re- 

278 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

signed  his  position.  He  had  read  of  the  theories 
of  psychoanalysis  and  sought  relief  in  its  methods. 
Then  it  was  discovered  that  he  had  been  unsuc- 
cessful in  all  love  affairs.  His  attentions  were  at 
first  returned  by  the  girl,  then  she  became  more 
distant  on  each  occasion  until  a  definite  refusal 
was  given.  Into  the  last  love  affair  he  had  put 
all  his  love,  hopes  and  ambitions,  but  after  a  few 
months  came  evasive  answers.  The  wedding  day 
was  not  yet  possible,  his  fiancee  said,  and  then  she 
left  him  for  an  extended  tour  with  an  uncertain 
whereabouts,  and  an  address  through  her  bankers. 
Letters  soon  became  rare  and  ceased,  she  giving 
only  the  unsatisfactory  reason  that  they  were  not 
suited  to  each  other.  He  searched  his  memory  for 
the  cause  of  his  love  failures.  He  led  an  exem- 
plary life,  was  finely  educated,  well-bred,  artistic, 
with  a  sure  appreciation  of  beauty. 

As  he  thought  always  of  why  he  was  refused, 
he  began  to  make  charts  of  everything  to  illus- 
trate his  explanations  and  covered  pages  with 
figures,  outside  of  his  class  room.  In  a  railway 
train  he  was  always  figuring  on  some  problem, 
he  would  take  infinite  pains  in  drawing  charts, 
going  into  minute  detail  which  interested  no  one 
and  was  of  no  use.  In  his  dreams  he  was  con- 
stantly being  threatened  with  a  danger,  and  often 
he  was  following  some  one  or  going  along  with  a 
number  of  people  and  imitating  them.  This  fur- 
nished the  explanation  of  his  love  affairs  ending 

279 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

so  unhappily  for  him.  Always  in  life,  he  was  fol- 
lowing, but  was  never  the  leader.  He  lacked  in- 
itiative, he  approached  people  more  as  a  woman 
or  a  child,  expecting  encouragement,  favours  and 
sjnnpathetic  advice,  than  as  a  man  to  make  place 
for  himself  and  his  work.  He  could  not  under- 
stand that  he  was  a  failure  in  the  eyes  of  his 
sweethearts.  They  saw  his  inability  to  advance, 
but  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  himself.  Early 
scholastic  honours  had  won  too  much  praise  from 
his  family  and  friends  so  that  he  became  very 
conceited,  and  refined  home  surroundings  had 
softened  and  weakened  his  power  of  resistance. 
He  had  never  sown  any  wild  oats.  The  ^^  treat 
'em  rough  '*  method  was  what  he  needed  to 
strengthen  his  energy,  to  arouse  a  passion  of 
conquest.  But  so  deeply  rooted  were  his  false 
idea-weeds  of  character,  that  he  travelled  for  three 
years  from  one  analyst  to  another,  calling  the  un- 
conscious material  of  his  dreams  *  ^  stuff, ' '  until  he 
found  one  strong  enough  to  break  down  his  re- 
sistance, when  he  saw  himself  quite  plainly  as  a 
jackass  in  the  following  dream: 

^^A  queer-loohing  animal  was  coming  toward 
me,  it  looked  like  a  hull-dog  with  marks  of  a  fleur- 
de-lis  on  its  forehead,  it  grew  very  large  and  he- 
came  a  hig  hird  like  an  eagle.  The  animal  seemed 
to  want  me  to  pet  it.  I  was  afraid  of  it  and  put  on 
a  heavy  pair  of  gloves  hefore  touching  it,  hut  I 
did  not  touch  it,  and  for  a  while  I  stood  looking 

280 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

at  it.  Then  its  wings  spread  and  it  flew  away; 
looked  like  am,  eagle.  It  did  not  like  me  and  was 
m  a  hurry  to  get  away.  I  then  went  up  some 
stairs  to  a  donkey  pen,  enclosed  with  bars,  the 
floor  was  filthy.  I  seemed  to  be  in  the  pen,  or 
near  it,  eating  something  like  snoiv  or  like  snow 
ice  cream,  which  when  children,  we  made  of  snow, 
fmlk  and  sugar.-' 

Analysis  of  the  dream  showed  the  patient  saw 
the  animal  part  of  his  nature  coming  toward  him, 
in  the  form  of  sexual  desires  and  was  afraid  of 
it  in  his  love  affairs.  His  first  love  affair  had  been 
with  an  English  girl  (bull-dog) ;  the  second  with 
a  French  girl  (fleur-de-lis) ;  and  the  third  with  an 
American  girl  (eagle).  She  had  left  him  without 
giving  a  reason,  had  become  interested  in  scientific 
work  and  succeeded  in  engineering  and  surveying 
with  large  financial  returns.  While  she  was  meas- 
uring large  areas,  he  was  working  on  tiny  dia- 
grams. His  ambitions  only  led  to  the  company  of 
jackasses  like  himself,  while  she  soared  above  him, 
and  he  made  a  childish  mess  of  his  life  (snow 
cream)  instead  of  doing  real  things,  making  real 
food.  In  the  dream  the  floor  of  the  jackass  pen 
was  filthy,  the  patient  having  discovered  that  un- 
married life  did  not  lead  to  clean  ways  of  thinking 
and  living. 

The  analysis  of  this  patient  further  showed  that 
an  ambitious  mother  in  his  early  years  had  closely 
watched  him,  selecting  his  friends  and  studies, 

281 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHELD 

and  had  attempted  to  start  bim  in  a  commercial 
life,  but  be  clung  to  matbematics  and  was  accepted 
as  a  teacber  in  a  college.  In  bis  dreams  be  was 
first  figuring  bow  to  get  away  from  bis  motber, 
and  later  bow  to  keep  bis  sweetbeart.  His  motber 
always  tried  to  make  bim  perfect.  No  one  else 
cared  wbat  be  was,  and  tbis  be  could  not  under- 
stand. 

AN   UNNURTURED   SOUL 

An  epileptic,  a  man,  an  only  cbild,  forty  years 
old,  parents  not  living,  came  for  an  analysis, 
boping  to  be  freed  from  bis  attacks.  He  bad 
never  bad  a  love  affair,  bis  motber  bad  done  all 
bis  tbinking  for  bim,  and,  as  sbe  was  very  deli- 
cate, bad  always  surrounded  bim  witb  don'ts,  fear- 
ing tbat  be,  too,  would  be  delicate.  His  fatber 
was  equally  careful  in  protecting  tbe  patient;  no 
rougb-and-tumble  play  of  cbildbood  was  ever  al- 
lowed and  tbe  parents  succeeded  in  producing  a 
very  delicate  lady-like  man.  He  bad  studied  for 
tbe  ministry  but  bad  never  taken  orders.  Tbe  only 
bealtby  years  of  bis  life  were  at  college — tben  be 
had  no  attacks.  But  strange  to  say  tbe  parents 
learned  nothing  from  tbis  fact.  Tbe  seizures  be- 
gan when  very  young,  occurring  at  irregular  in- 
tervals, a  month  or  six  weeks  apart.  His  mother 
bad  taught  mus^.c  before  her  marriage,  so  regard- 
less of  wbat  natural  ability  tbe  patient  had,  his 
major    subject    at   college    was    music    and    he 

282 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

graduated  with  a  B.S.  in  music.  His  playing  was 
atrocious,  very  mechanical,  naturally  no  emotional 
feeling  in  it  as  his  emotions  were  all  blocked  up 
and  buried  beneath  a  debris  of  outside  opinions 
forced  upon  him.  The  first  dream  he  brought 
showed  clearly  the  cause  and  he  saw  it,  sajdng  he 
was  sure  he  had  been  too  closely  sheltered,  too 
much  in  the  shade.  He  had  always  been  afraid  of 
every  move,  fearing  it  would  bring  on  an  attack, 
never  could  decide  what  to  do.  The  dreams  which 
preceded  an  attack  always  showed  him  as  attempt- 
ing to  change  something,  but  unable  to  do  so  at 
first,  and  then  later  the  unconscious  thought 
showed  plainly  that  a  girl  was  needed  to  make  his 
life  whole  and  strong.  He  declared  he  knew  that 
was  true  as  his  college  chum  was  an  epileptic  and 
since  marriage  had  been  well.  I  do  not  know  that 
marriage  usually  helps  epilepsy,  as  the  epileptic 
is  not  free  enough  from  his  unconscious  complexes 
to  marry.  And  only  after  several  weeks '  analysis 
did  the  patient  bring  in  the  following  dreams : 

In  the  first  dream  the  patient  ''was  the  only 
man  at  a  reception ,  every  one  was  talking  noisily. 
Tea  was  served,  hut  I  was  standing  on  the  bottom 
of  a  trench  and  was  the  only  one  there.  The  ladies 
stood  on  high  benches  so  that  they  were  above, 
while  I  could  only  just  see  over,  I  remarked  that 
it  seemed  queer  that  they  were  so  much  above  me. 
Then  the  scene  changed  to  an  amphitheatre,  with 
a  large  audience.    I  ivas  seated  in  the  middle 

283 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

about  half  way  up.  I  had  a  stramge  desire  to' 
change  my  Imen  shirt  and  tried  to  remove  the  one 
I  had  on,  but  it  was  difficult  to  do.  I  was  strug- 
gling to  get  it  free  from  my  arms  and  over  my 
head,  when  a  man  in  front  turned  around  and 
offered  to  assist  me.  Then  a  man  seated  by  my 
side  said  to  the  man  in  front,  'He  does  not  need 
any  help,  he  is  all  right  now,  it  is  only  epilepsy.'  " 

Tlie  analysis  showed  that  the  patient  was  below 
the  level  of  existence  and  was  so  buried  in  the 
mother  (the  trench,  where  one  hides  from  danger 
as  his  mother  had  always  made  him  hide  away) 
that  he  could  not  get  a  proper  view  of  life.  He 
had  lifted  women  to  such  an  exalted  position  (his 
study  for  the  ministry  and  adoration  of  the  Virgin 
Mary)  that  he  saw  it  was  unnatural,  but  could  not 
understand  that  it  was  because  his  life  was  also 
unnatural.  In  the  second  part  of  the  dream  the 
patient  shows  how  his  unnatural  life  has  weakened 
his  power.  He  has  ^'a  strong  desire  to  change  my 
linen  shirt.''  The  linen  shirt  brought  associa- 
tions of  homespun  linen,  old-fashioned  people  and 
ideas,  from  which  the  patient  tries  to  free  him- 
self but  is  unable  to  do  so  without  help. 

In  another  dream:  ''It  seemed  I  a/nd  others 
were  under  the  control  of  a/n  absolute  dictator  or 
disciplinarian  called  Orlando  Smith  and  whenever 
I  might  seem  to  forget  his  power  and  begin  to 
think  myself  independent  I  would  suddenly  be 
made  aware  of  his  authority  over  me.    As  a  motor- 

284 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

man  on  cm  electric  car  sometimes  works  the  brake 
in  a  choppy  way  when  progress  has  to  he  slow  he- 
coAise  of  a  truck  on  the  track,  such  was  the  may  in 
my  dream,  feeling  free  and  going  on  until  I  would 
suddenly  become  aware  of  the  tyrant  ruling  me 
and  I  would  stop  with  a  start/' 

Analysis ;  His  epilepsy  is  the  tyrant  whom  the 
censor  of  the  dream  allows  to  come  into  conscious 
thought  as  ** Orlando  Smith."  The  patient  knew 
of  no  one  with  such  a  name.  *  *  Orlando ' '  suggested 
a  place  in  Florida  named  Orlando  where  he  had 
met  fifteen  years  ago  a  girl  who  had  interested  him, 
then  came  associations  of  Shakespeare 's  character 
Orlando  whom  the  patient  thought  had  laid  love 
poems  in  the  woods  and  was  lovesick  for  Rosalind. 
'* Smith"  was  the  name  of  an  unmarried  friend 
of  the  patient  who  also  suffered  from  similar  at- 
tacks. Thus  we  see  the  unconscious  comparison 
of  a  lovesick  person  and  an  epileptic,  and  the  pa- 
tient cannot  free  himself  from  the  instinct  of  mat- 
ing, which  we  know  is  the  strongest  in  life. 

Another  dream  of  a  pet  dog  which  was  so  re- 
markably well  trained  it  would  do  anything  it  was 
told,  which  brought  associations  to  the  patient  of 
a  pet  Pomeranian  he  had  had.  The  Pomeranian 
was  so  hard  to  control,  that  the  patient  loaned  him 
to  some  one  else,  but  the  dog  was  so  snappy  he 
was  given  back.  In  the  unconscious  the  patient 
uses  the  dog  as  a  libido  symbol  of  himself,  and 
we  see  that  the  patient  ^s  libido  comes  back  to  him 

285 


THE  PEOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

in  epileptic  attacks.  A  woman's  ^*don'ts''  have 
made  him  fearful  and  driven  back  the  libido  into 
the  patient,  producing  an  attack. 

The  last  and  most  important  dream  was  of  a 
moving  picture  the  patient  had  seen  called  **The 
Angel  of  Peace, ' '  in  which  the  angel  was  a  pretty 
girl.  Children  came  from  her  skirts,  bringing 
food,  and  in  the  dream  they  offered  food  to  the 
patient.  The  angel  of  peace  and  the  children 
needed  no  analysis,  but  showed  the  patient's  needs 
and  solution  of  his  problem.  His  soul  was  starved, 
his  body  even  looked  starved,  so  thin  and  pinched 
was  his  appearance,  no  filling  out  of  character  had 
been  possible. 

A  FEAGMENTARY  SOUL 

The  conceited  person's  sentiments  for  himself 
may  take  the  form  of  pride  or  that  of  vanity,  the 
one  based  more  on  his  own  conception  of  his  char- 
acter and  position,  the  other  on  what  he  takes 
to  be  others'  conception  of  him.  Pride  is  evi- 
dently nearer  to  self-respect  and  sometimes  we 
use  the  word  almost  as  a  term  of  approbation; 
but  in  its  strict  sense  pride  represents  selfishness 
and  excludes  humility,  while  the  self-respecting 
man  feels  humble  and  reverent  before  the  proper 
objects  but  detests  a  false  moral  humility  as 
** toadying,  favouring  or  cringing"  before  su- 
periors. Both  pride  and  vanity  may  be  wounded, 
the  former  by  one 's  own  failure,  the  latter  by  the 

286 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

contempt  of  others;  but  pride  is  the  less  easily- 
hurt,  for  it  is  apt  to  attribute  its  failure  wholly  to 
the  injustice  of  others.  Both  sentiments  rest  upon 
narrowness  of  outlook  and  constitute  infantile  re- 
actions. Sometimes  when  the  attempt  to  destroy 
false  pride  and  vanity  by  explainings  is  ineffec- 
tual, it  may  be  diminished  (in  boys  and  girls  more 
often  than  adults)  by  encouraging  those  who  ex- 
hibit these  attributes  to  take  an  interest  in  matters 
where  they  are  so  obviously  incompetent  that  they 
cannot  deceive  even  themselves.  When  these  re- 
actions fail,  where  the  motive  of  self  is  so  exag- 
gerated that  a  person  lives  in  a  world  of  *^me  '' 
and  *'mine''  and  has  no  share  in  the  broad  human 
interests  which  lift  him  out  of  himself,  his  life 
remains  a  fragment  and  the  virtues  have  no  soil  to 
grow  in,  the  creative  emotions  are  buried  in  him- 
self. Man  cannot  create  with  himself  alone;  an- 
other human  is  necessary.  ^'Complete  develop- 
ment of  character  can  be  attained  only  by  devoting 
ourselves  to  some  large  end  in  co-operation  with 
others.''  When  we  find  it,  by  nature's  methods  of 
reproduction  of  the  species  in  a  well-mated  exist- 
ence, we  are  most  fortunate,  as  it  is  the  most  satis- 
factory. Life  is  ever  crying  out  for  more  life. 
When  we  find  it  in  the  pursuit  of  science,  in 
poetry  or  religion,  we  call  it  a  **  sublimation, " 
as  it  is  a  lifting  up  of  the  emotional  content  out 
of  the  gross  sexual  into  the  intellectual  control  of 
the  instincts. 

287 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUlS  CHHliD 

WHAT  IS  THE  SELF? 

It  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter  that  the  idea  each  one  of  us  has  of  him- 
self is  not  really  so  clear  as  we  often  suppose  it  to 
be.  When  a  person  says  ^  ^  It  is  as  certain  as  that 
I  am  standing  here"  when  he  wishes  strongly  to 
affirm  his  belief,  and  he  is  asked  what  he  means  by 
this  **I''  of  which  he  speaks  so  positively,  he  will 
not  find  it  so  easy  to  answer.  When  asked  as  to 
some  whys  and  wherefores  of  his  conduct,  he  will 
find  some  difficulties,  for  he  has  acted  on  what  he 
thinks  is  an  impulse,  the  origin  of  which  he  does 
not  know,  and  he  will  soon  discover  that  the 
boundaries  of  what  he  considers  his  self  vary 
greatly  from  time  to  time.  They  vary  according 
to  whether  his  actions  proceed  from  conscious  or 
unconscious  wishes,  a  statement  which  will  be  bet- 
ter understood  by  the  world  as  time  goes  on.  The 
world  is  beginning,  dimly,  to  perceive  that  war 
comes  from  an  accumulation  of  emotional  energy 
in  the  unconscious  which  bursts  forth  into  greed, 
envy  and  hatred,  and  that  pent  up  emotions  poison 
the  moral  life  as  food  retained  poisons  the  chemi- 
cal life,  of  nations  as  well  as  individuals.  The 
safety  of  life  depends  upon  a  greater  understand- 
ing of  these  fundamental  laws.  When  the  ruler 
of  a  nation  as  well  as  the  ruler  of  a  family  realizes 
that  the  formation  of  character  rests  upon  indi- 
vidual strength  rather  than  upon  fear   of  au- 

288 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

thority ;  that  firmness  and  reliability  of  character 
must  be  the  result  of  a  greater  breadth  of  thought 
and  sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  ruling  authority, 
and  arousing  the  interest  and  activity,  sharing 
with  them  instead  of  making  the  weaker  feel  the 
power  of  the  greater,  a  great  step  forward  will  be 
made  in  civilization. 

In  the  analysis  of  self  we  may  begin  in  a  nega- 
tive way  of  thinking  what  we  are  not.  Further 
analysis  of  the  unconscious  frequently  shows  that 
what  we  think  we  are  not  is  just  exactly  what  we 
are.  Our  self-sufficiency  is  the  reverse  of  our  true 
self.  *'In  its  widest  sense,"  says  Professor 
James,  '*a  man's  self  is  the  sum  total  of  what  he 
can  call  his,  not  only  his  body  and  his  psychic 
power,  but  his  clothes  and  his  house,  his  wife  and 
his  children,  his  ancestors  and  friends,  his  reputa- 
tion and  works,  his  land  and  horses,  and  his  yachts 
and  bank  account.  All  these  things  give  him  the 
same  emotions.  If  they  wax  and  prosper  he  feels 
triumphant ;  if  they  dwindle  and  die  away,  he  feels 
downcast."  (Principles  of  Psychology.)  And 
yet  at  times  we  revolt  against  the  body  as  not  our- 
selves, as  when  we  say  */the  spirit  is  willing  but 
the  flesh  is  weak, "  or  *  ^  I  am  not  frightened  though 
my  body  is  trembling."  The  self  of  fevered  de- 
lirium and  of  dreams  is  not  the  ordinary  self.  If 
sudden  excitement  or  passion  carries  us  away,  and 
we  act  in  a  manner  inconsistent  with  our  usual 
character  as  we  conceive  it,  we  are  apt  to  repudi- 

289 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHiD 

ate  our  behaviour  and  say,  **I  was  not  myself 
when  I  felt,  thought  or  did  that/*  We  are  learn- 
ing that  those  thoughts,  feelings  or  actions  pro- 
ceed from  our  unconscious  which  is  in  such  in- 
stances stronger  than  our  conscious,  and  there  will 
be  a  consequent  lack  of  self-control  with  weak 
character  formation. 


MAKING  OF  CHARACTER 

Training  of  character  is  a  double  problem.  The 
child  who  is  selfish  at  home,  who  has  not  been 
taught  self-control  and  has  not  felt  the  discipline 
of  self-denial,  will  be  selfish  at  school  and  after 
school  life.  The  enlargement  of  the  circumstances 
gives  the  selfish  person  more  opportunity  to  get 
what  he  wants,  but  the  self  that  he  gratifies  will  be 
small  and  empty.  The  unselfish,  benevolent, 
public-spirited  and  patriotic  frequently  injure 
themselves  in  doing  good  to  others,  exhausted  in 
excessive  giving  and  crippling  their  energy,  re- 
ceiving no  return  for  their  energy  expended.  The 
recipient  too  often  belongs  to  the  great  mass  of 
inefficients  who  drain  both  national  and  individual 
resources,  not  self-supporting  by  their  own  efforts, 
but  seeking  to  live  by  the  efforts  of  others.  Self- 
ish and  unselfish  alike  must  seek  their  own  wel- 
fare, but  the  selfish  seek  it  in  opposition  to  the 
society,  of  which  in  spite  of  themselves,  they  can- 
not remain  members,   and  are   consumed   with 

290 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

envy  and  jealousy  of  those  unselfish  ones,  who,  by 
their  own  efforts  identify  their  own  good  with  a 
good  that  goes  beyond  themselves. 

Training  of  character  in  children  is  also  a  dou- 
ble problem.  Good  habits  and  interests  must  be 
formed,  and  those  that  are  dangerous  must  be 
understood  and  excluded.  Something  may  be 
accomplished  if  it  is  remembered  that  forcible 
repression  is  an  undesirable  method  unless  a  bet- 
ter is  fostered  in  its  place.  It  is  this  repression 
and  prohibition  which  cause  emotional  accumula- 
tion, and  then  we  blame  such  persons  and  declare 
they  have  a  *'  rotten  disposition  ''  and  nations 
under  such  repressions  go  to  war.  ^^ Rotten''  is  a 
very  descriptive  word,  for,  as  we  have  said,  emo- 
tions when  repressed  decay  and  become  septic. 
When  the  life  energy  has  been  denied  a  free  out- 
let and  nervous  troubles  result,  little  can  be  ac- 
complished in  the  formation  of  character  by 
formal  moral  instruction,  and  lessons  in  civics, 
patriotism  and  the  like  are  too  likely  to  breed 
prigs.  Character  is  formed  by  action,  and  not  by 
isolated  lessons.  The  subject  of  prohibition  is  a 
grave  one.  A  constitutional  amendment  prohibit- 
ing alcoholic  drink  is  expected  to  improve  the 
character  of  the  nation.  It  probably  will,  although 
the  weak  natures  which  seek  relief  from  their 
cravings  and  longings  in  alcohol  may  seek  relief 
in  more  dangerous  methods  of  criminal  acts  of 
violence.    Alcohol  acts  quickly  and,  as  we  often 

291 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERV0U8  CHILD 

see  in  psychoanalytic  work,  affords  instant  relief 
from  a  frenzy  of  repressed  emotions  with  forget- 
fulness  and  sleep.  As  a  patient  remarked,  *^I  was 
drunk  last  night  and  feel  played  out  this  morn- 
ing, but  if  I  had  not  gotten  drunk  I  should  have 
raped  some  woman  or  smashed  a  jewelry  store 
wdndow,  I  had  to  do  something.''  This  patient 
has  now  recovered  from  the  feeling  ^*I  had  to  do 
something, ' '  and  is  doing  something,  real  work,  as 
the  overseer  of  a  certain  part  in  a  factory.  When 
he  looked  into  his  unconscious  and  saw  the  low- 
down  creature  he  was,  he  turned  away  in  horror 
and  disgust. 

PEACE 

A  league  of  nations  is  now  formed  to  arrange  a 
lasting  peace.  We  trust  the  eminent  people  sitting 
around  the  peace  table  will  realize  the  necessity 
of  starting  up  industries  and  occupations  to  keep 
the  people  busy,  with  trade  throughout  the  world. 
Compulsory  education,  compulsory  work  and 
arousing  men's  ambitions  will  do  more  to  keep 
peace  than  the  trade  restrictions  to  create  rivalry 
and  envy.  Competition  is  healthful  and  arouses 
desire  for  self -improvement.  To  lift  up  and  im- 
prove the  enormous  mass  of  inefficient  population 
is  slow,  and  must  be  largely  accomplished  through 
the  children.  We  know  the  children  of  alcoholic 
parents  are  apt  to  show  what  poor  seed  was 
planted,  and  we  hope  to  improve  the  future  gen- 

292 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

erations  with  better  seed  and  better  soil.  But 
weeds  thrive  even  better  in  good  soil,  and  I  pre- 
dict that  the  lower  class  will  become  dangerous 
when  they  no  longer  find  comfort  in  a  pail  of  beer. 
Labour  troubles  are  not  entirely  the  result  of 
ignorance  of  the  employed,  but  more  often  of  the 
employer,  because  the  employed  is  to  the  employer 
as  is  the  child  to  the  parent.  We  expect  too  much 
of  both  child  and  the  employed,  much  more  than 
we  do  of  ourselves.  An  entire  nation  so  strictly 
guarded,  education  made  difficult  and  the  self  of 
the  individual  so  ignored  as  in  Russia  must  neces- 
sarily lack  knowledge  of  experience  and  self- 
reliance  ;  they  can  only  suffer  cruelly  as  our  chil- 
dren would  if  suddenly  left  alone  without  love  and 
guidance.  An  army  of  civilization  is  needed  to 
supply  Russia  with  food  and  comforts  for  the 
people  to  show  them  a  life  that  is  not  of  misery 
and  suffering,  and  then  the  natural  instincts  will 
again  come  to  life.  Greed  and  accumulation  are 
not  natural  instincts,  but  are  the  products  of  civili- 
zation. We  may  take  care  of  a  surplus  as  the  dog 
buries  his  bone,  but  he  does  not  spend  his  entire 
time  in  hunting  bones  to  bury,  nor  should  man- 
kind. 

Far  more  instructive  than  lessons  in  morals  are 
actual  examples, — for  the  young  are  ready  to  wor- 
ship heroes  and  take  great  pains  to  copy  them, — 
the  appeal  to  imagination  which  is  made  by  the 
^*f>ries  of  brave  deeds  and  noble  characters,  and 

293 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHILD 

still  more  by  honourable  traditions  of  the  family 
or  school.  To  be  worthy  of  our  ancestors  helps 
many  weak,  uncertain  lives  to  persevere,  but  the 
most  influential  of  all  means  is  sympathetic  per- 
sonal encouragement  of  common  interests  and  of 
the  natural  tendencies  toward  difficult  occupations, 
which  in  numberless  ways  take  children  out  of 
themselves.  If  children  are  to  become  self- 
respecting,  responsible  persons,  they  must  with 
tact  and  patience  be  incited  to  take  upon  them- 
selves gradually  widening  responsibility. 


BREADTH    OF    CHARACTER 

Nevertheless,  training  must  not  be  such  that 
when  later  the  child  becomes  his  own  master,  his 
character  ceases  to  grow  toward  good.  The 
primitive  savages  exercise  all  the  virtues  toward 
their  own  tribe  but  when  they  meet  a  stranger 
regard  it  in  no  way  wrong  to  rob,  torture  or  kill 
him.  We  see  it  in  the  gipsies  who  have  a  fine  code 
of  morals  among  themselves.  Indeed,  we  have 
seen  it  in  the  great  world  conflict  where  nations 
lost  sight  of  any  duty  to  their  neighbour,  or  else 
they  have  an  unreasonably  narrow  conception  of 
the  neighbour  to  whom  they  owe  the  right  of  exist- 
ence. People  had  been  trained  in  the  customs  of 
their  own  country,  but  there  they  stuck,  never 
using  their  intelligence  so  as  to  widen  their  notions 
of  right  and  wrong.     Greater  breadth  of  view, 

294 


SELF  AND  CHARACTER 

breadth  of  sympathy,  breadth  of  interest  cannot 
be  given  without  reasonableness,  thought  and 
understanding  of  the  primitive  urge  of  nature 
always  existing  in  the  unconscious  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 

I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  idea  that  the  uncon- 
scious is  always  a  source  of  danger;  it  is  so  only 
when  the  individual  is  not  able  to  take  the  energy 
from  the  unconscious  and  use  it  in  the  construc- 
tion of  his  life,  for  life  has  always  a  tomorrow 
with  new  possibilities  to  work  for.  The  uncon- 
scious is  made  up  of  material  repressed  from  the 
conscious,  stifled  and  shut  up  by  the  forces  of  cir- 
cumstances and,  as  we  have  said,  like  an  untrained 
horse  is  shut  up  out  of  sight  and  hearing,  but  is 
just  as  wild  and  uncontrolled.  But  if  that  horse  is 
trained  to  drive  and  obey  he  is  like  the  urge  of  life 
in  us  when  it  is  controlled,  a  very  great  power 
which  we  can  use.  When  a  child  has  a  wish  which 
cannot  be  granted,  the  wish  does  not  vanish  but  is 
shut  out  of  sight  like  the  horse,  whereas,  if  we 
could  help  the  child  to  see  why  he  cannot  have 
his  wish  granted,  he  would  be  able  to  control  his 
wish  until  he  could  understand  the  reason.  The 
controlled  energy  of  life  will  be  our  servant  like 
the  electric  current  when  it  follows  along  a  con- 
ductor, but  the  wild  electrical  discharge  destroys 
and  kills.  To  teach  self-control  to  our  children 
is  a  great  trial  to  our  patience,  but  it  will  be  more 
conducive    to    everlasting    peace    than    all    the 

295 


THE  PKOBLEM  OF  THE  NERVOUS  CHHjD 

Leagues  of  Nations,  Peace  Tables  and  laws  of  the 
land.  The  true  peace  comes  from  within,  and 
depends  more  upon  the  character  of  the  individual 
and  the  individual's  governing  himself  than  upon 
the  laws  enforced  from  without. 


296 


INDEX 


Active,  child  must  be,  66 
Admiration,  11 
Alcohol,  124,  163,  257,  291 
Anger,   160 
Anxiety,  161 
Aphasia,  116 

Appearance,  personal,  117 
Association,  free,  24,  58 
Attention,  106 
Autoerotism,  168,  258 

Blocked  libido,  29,  190 
Boy,  impossible,  98 
Boys'  club,  102 
Burbank,  Luther,  109 
Buried  emotions,  160,  266 
Burns,  Robert,  159 

Calf  love,  72 
Cannon,  160 
Castration,  166 
Censor,  47 
Character,  269,  294 

negative,  3 
Child  activity,  66 

coimtry,  21 

shut  up,  187 

training,  181,  294 
Childish  problems,  unsolved,  78 
Children,  capable,  108 

defence  against,  122 

of  the  rich,  90 
Child's  words,  4 
City  life,  imwholesome,  22,  132 
Cognition,  95 
Complex,  136 

housewife's,    cause    of,    131, 
136 

parent,  130 

thirteen,  150 
Composite  nature  of  symbol,  44 

297 


Conation,  94 
Conceit,  277,  286 
Concentration,  76 
Confirmation,  139 
Conflict,  48,  50 

Consciousness,  dualism  of,  263 
Creative  amotions,  188 
Curiosity,  178 

Day  dreaming,  51 

Defence  against  children,  122 

inferiority  feeling,  243 

reactions,  113 

unpleasant  demands,  223 

work,  126 
Dementia    praecox,    124,    157, 

255 
Descendants  of  the   repressed, 

24 
Desexualization,  166 
Disposition,  92 

"rotten",  49,  266 
Dream,  44,  54 

analysis,  277 

symbolism,  56 

Education,  243 

Emotions,   160,   162,  273,  283, 
288,  291 

buried,  160,  266 

childish,   192 

creative,  188 

starved,  190 
Epilepsy,  254,  282 
Erotism,  muscle,  195 
Exhibitionism,  128 

Failures,  136 

Family  atmosphere,  14,  114 

nervous,  123 

skeleton,  69 


INDEX 


Father,  as  model,  239 

complex,  226 

image,  140 
Fear,  160 
Feeling,  95 

Fixation  of  libido,  81,  177 
Free  association,  24,  58 
Freud,  S.,  110,  note 

Guiding  the  libido,  67 

Heart  disease,  154 

Heraclitus,  34 

Husband,  despotic,  Wanted,  173 

Ideal,  the  feminine,  143 
Identification,  45 
Idolized  daughter,  118 

son,  121 
Illness  a  regression,  88 

defence,  223 

as  tyranny,  228 
Imagining  vs.  thinking,  158 
Imitation,  7 

game,  241 
Impossible  boy,  an,  98 
Incendiarism,  206 
Incest  phantasy,  138,  139 
Incorrigible  child,  233 

girl,  171 
Individuality,  groNvth  of,  261 
Infants,  aged,  18 
Inferiority,  feeling  of,  243,  275 
Influences,  early,  19,  111 
Insubordination,  232 
Intelligence  tests,  16 
Interpretation,  58 

James,  William,  162,  289 

Jealousy,  236 

Jung,  C.  G.,  vii,  64,  256 

Kleptomania,  256 

Latent  vs.  manifest,  60 
Libido,  26,  38,  64,  266 

blocked,  29,  190 

fixation  of,  81 


guiding,  67 

liberation  of,  184 

regression  of,  230 

splitting  of,  82 

sublimation  of,  65,  197 
Longfellow,  40 
Love  affairs,  72 

calf,  72 

early,  75 

mother,  135 

springtime  of,  164 
"  Loved  to  death,"  271 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  27 
Lying,  255 

Manifest  vs.  latent,  60 
Masturbation,  168,  258 
Mental  surgery,  267 
Meredith,  George,  20,  39 
Metabolism,  266 
Montessori,  Mme.,  107 
Mother  image,  141 

love,  135 
Mothers  wooing  sons,  149 
Muscle  erotism,  195 

Narcissism,  147 
Negativism,  116,  174,  275 
Nero,  232 
"Nerves,"  130,  147 

Oppenheim,  James,  115 
Outlet  for  energy,  82 
Ovariotomy,  166 
Over-confidence,  278 

Pain,  pleasure  in,  186 
Parent  complex,  130 
Parents  as  signboards,  235 
Parent's  will,  247 
Peace,  292 

Personal  appearance,  117 
Perversity,  160,  161 
Petit-mal,  169 
Phantasy,  51 

the  incest,  138,  139 
Play,  work  and,  75 
Pope,  273 


298 


INDEX 


Power,  craving  for,  260 
Prenatal  conditions,  9 
Primitive  thought,  42 
Prohibition,  291 
Psychic  muscle,  63,  182 
Psychoanalysis,  12,  55,  61,  83, 

230,  233,  257,  273,  277 
Psychoanalytic  method,  23 
Psychology,  25,  269 
Punishment,  274 

Reaction,  defence,   113 

formula,  241,  245 
Regression,  86,  230 

illness  a,  88 
Repressed,  descendants  of  the, 

24 
Repression,    31,    37,    254,    256, 

291 
Reproduction,  163 
Ribot,  Th.,  163 
Right  and  wrong,  246 
"  Rotten  disposition,"  49,  266 

*'  School  misery,"  241 
Self  and  character,  546 
Self-confidence,  276 

growth  of,  270 
Sex  education,  167,  170 

fear  of,  177 
Silence,  defensive,  116 
Skeleton,  family,  69 
Smile  as  reward,  248 
Speech,  defensive,  116 
Splitting  of  libido,  82 
Stealing,  255 
Strength  of  weakness,  236 
Sublimation,  65,  197 


Symbol,    composite   nature   of, 

44 
Symbolic  thought,  41 
Symbolism  preserves  sleep,  50 

Talking,  excessive,  128 
Terman,  L.  M.,  17 
Tests,  intelligence,  16 
Thinking,  unconscious,  35 

vs.  imagining,  158 
Thirteen  complex,  150 
Thought,  primitive,  42 

symbolic,  41 

unassimilated,  70 

unconscious,  226 
Thoughts  go,  where,  34 
Thymus  trouble,  118 
Ticklishness,   124 
Toleration,  264 
Training,  child,  181,  294 
Tyrant  child,  the,  222 

Unconscious,  37,  295 

needs,  233 

problems,  63 

thinking,  35 

thoughts,  226 
Unsolved  childish  problems,  78 
Untruthfulness,  97,  254 

Wish,  181 

in  stealing  and  lying,  25S 
Words,  a  child's,  4 
Work  and  play,  75 

defence  against,  126 

Zurich  school,  the,  64 


299 


University  of 
Connecticut 

Libraries 


